


Out of Place

by hinata22



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-09-21 14:10:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9552341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinata22/pseuds/hinata22
Summary: Sasuke is finally going to kill Naruto when something bizarre and unexplained happens, the two of them reappear in a strange world, after all their time of being at war with each other will they be able to work together and get home?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miasen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miasen/gifts).



> This is my first attempt at a fanfiction so please be kind and honest. I love this world and adore this relationship and just want to share some of my random imaginings with people who may (cross fingers!) enjoy them.  
> Thank you very much for taking the time to read this particular story as I know there are so many great works out there to choose from. I appreciate any feedback you can give me and apologise for any errors that I haven't picked up with my editing, sometimes I'm a bit wordblind which I realise isn't the best sales pitch for a writer but I hope you'll be patient and bear with me :)

Sasuke breathed deeply. Not from any effect of the battle, but because the emotions that he so carefully contained were threatening to break free. Even while he worked at restraining them, he could feel the edge of exhilaration, regret and something that he decided to categorise as nostalgia. He had been planning and visualising this very moment for a long time, but the reality of seeing Uzumaki Naruto scrabbling around on his knees in the dust was something that needed to be experienced in order to be properly understood.

Anyone else would know they were defeated by now, but Sasuke waited patiently for Naruto to succeed in standing upright. His intention in luring his once-comrade to this location had been to experiment with some of his new jutsu on a body he knew would give them the ultimate test, and then leave Naruto still breathing in a place obvious enough for the useless Anba to ‘find’ him. He would be taken to hospital, they would patch him up, think they saved him, but it would all be too late. The blonde would fade away amongst friends that were helpless to do anything but watch. Even the great Tsunade would be unable to solve the mystery of what Sasuke had done to him. The contemplation of it, had given Sasuke a sense of purpose that had been missing since his anti-climactic dispatching of Itachi.

Now, however, something inside him was willing Sasuke to forget about all his planning and to give Naruto a different death. He hoped it was because he wanted the satisfaction and certainty of trying out another jutsu that would leave no doubt about the other ninja’s death. But he feared that it may be more related to gazing at the tenacious ninja fighting on long after his defeat was definite, and the memory of a twelve year old whirl of blondeness who never gave up no matter how useless everyone else told him he was.

Hunched up, Naruto appeared closer to collapsing again than mounting another attack, but Sasuke composed his features as Naruto did what he knew he would: summon up the remains of his chakra to create a clone and make a rasengan. 

Sasuke had no need to move to weave the signs that would finally finish his opponent off, but out of a respect he didn’t realise he felt, Sasuke raced towards Naruto as if they were equals meeting fist-to-fist. He listened to Naruto’s battlecry, the age-old promise he had heard scores and scores of time before, the promise that he would take Sasuke home. His heart fluttered strangely though as if it was the first time he’d heard those words and as if he actually believed them. Or wanted to believe them. 

However, whatever disobedient emotions were pulsing through him, his fingers were compliant to the man he was, and swiftly went through the motions that would end Naruto and all his hopes and dreams and promises forever.

 

********  
Everything was silent. In the moments before Sasuke opened his eyes he ran through everything that had happened and everything that was supposed to happen. He should be standing alone victorious after completing a battle that had been raging since his childhood. Instead he was lying on a strange bed in a place he didn’t know. The air was filled with small sounds and scents that he couldn’t recognise, but overpowering them all was a very familiar snoring.

Cautiously Sasuke turned with wide eyes and looked to see a person sleeping beside him. There should be nothing but doubt, but Sasuke was certain, it smelled, looked, and definitely sounded like him because it was him. Uzumaki Naruto with all his smiling, snoring, snuggliness was unmistakable.

The slight movement Sasuke had made in looking at him, caused Naruto to readjust his own position, and with an especially loud snore curl in tightly against the raven.

Sasuke had trained all his life to face danger, both acknowledged and hidden, with calmness and dignity. He never even twitched an eyebrow in situations which would have made other ninjas scream with terror. So that is what he’d do now, use his natural serenity and complete self-control to assess what had happened.

One of Sasuke’s hands fisted into the sleeping blonde’s collar, the other whipped across his face. ‘What have you done, Uzumaki? How did you beat me? Naruto! Wake up and tell me what you’ve done to me NOW!’

Blue eyes flickered and a sleepy voice muttered something about ramen, then a hand went to a whiskered cheek and for a brief moment the face appeared alert. ‘Did you slap me, teme?’ The eyes closed again with a deep chuckle. ‘You always did fight like a little bitch.’

Sasuke felt as if his whole body was turning as red as his sharingan, how dare the idiot taunt him like that, this was what he got when he showed a moment of mercy, when he weakened and was going to give his enemy a quick death rather than leave him to suffer. 

In one quick movement he flipped Naruto onto his back, pinning both his hands with one of his own, straddled the other teen and slapped him even harder across his face. For his efforts he got a slight groan that didn’t seem to signify any pain or intention to wake up soon.

Sasuke squeezed his hand into a fist, he was used to thinking of Naruto as an annoying ball of energy, and had forgotten how hard he was to move when he decided he wanted to sleep. Sasuke glanced down at his hands and considered using chidori, a smirk flittered across his face at the thought. But he repressed the urge. Until he knew what was going on, he needed to be careful. Plus, although this sleeping Naruto appeared to only have a few bruises left from the fight, it might not mean anything as most of what he had inflicted had purposely been invisible internal injuries, and he didn’t want to risk killing him before he had got any relevant information out of him. After that, then he would give the boy the most painful end he could imagine. And one of Sasuke’s gifts was imagining pain.  
But he couldn’t think about that right now, he had to calm down and wake up the most annoying, unpredictable ninja whose presence had cursed Sasuke’s life. Or anyone’s life for that matter.

The calmness didn’t arrive immediately as Sasuke shook, slapped and shouted at Naruto to wake up. He sat panting on top of Naruto, his eyes scanning quickly around the room for any blunt or sharp object he could use to get a reaction from the blonde. Nothing caught his focus but when he returned his gaze to the sleeping boy, Naruto made a slight mewling noise and an old long forgotten memory became vivid again.

Sasuke took deep breaths feeling every oxygen particle entering his lungs, aware of the foreign cooling taste of the air dancing over his tongue. The image in his mind, surely that wasn’t the answer? And if it was, was it really worth it?

He sighed and muttered all the worse swear words he knew, before reaching a reluctant hand out and softly caressing it through Naruto’s hair. Constantly reminding himself that he needed Naruto conscious and conversing to fully understand and deal with this situation, Sasuke began to hum. He stretched his fingers out and with a skilled touch, that he was surprised was still in his muscle memory, he massaged around the blonde’s head.

‘You’re safe, Naruto, you’re not alone,’ Sasuke spoke in a gentle voice that he had not used for years. ‘I’m here, your friend, wake up and we’ll face a bright beautiful day together.’  
Naruto’s eyes opened wide. His gaze was the brightest blue, full of trust and happiness and focused entirely on Sasuke.

Sasuke’s heart stopped for the briefest moment. Obviously due to shock that such a tactic had actually worked. Before he could start his interrogation Naruto threw his arms around him, in a hug fiercer and stronger than some of the blonde’s attacks.

‘You’re back! I knew you’d come back. And you remembered. I can’t believe you remembered. How you used to wake me up, because you listened to me, and you knew me better than I knew myself. You remembered! You worked out that as a kid I’d got used to sleeping as much as possible to hide out the real world, because my dreams were better than the loneliness and…’ Something in Naruto’s brain seemed to click, he pulled back from Sasuke and looked around with suspicious eyes. ‘The Sasuke I know wouldn’t remember something like that. The Sasuke I know spends all his time thinking of ways to torture me. What have you done to me, teme?’ He kicked Sasuke flying off the bed before Sasuke could react and then leapt off the bed himself. 

Sasuke looked at the other teen who was continuing to shout in that loud voice of his demanding to know what trick Sasuke was playing.

Sasuke sighed and leant heavily back against the strange wall. All his years and years of training, the thousands of battles he’d won with a combination of skill and wit, yet still he was stupid enough to wake up the dobe in the strange belief that Naruto would know something that he didn’t. After so long would it turn out that it was really Uchiha Sasuke that was the complete idiot?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read this story, I hope you enjoy it as much as I am having fun writing it.

Naruto’s tirade against Sasuke’s mind games was only interrupted every few sentences by a pathetic attempt to release himself from the imagined genjutsu. There was no indication that he was going to make any physical attacks. Which was fair enough, over the years one of Naruto’s biggest and unexpected weapons had been his voice. Sasuke had heard the joke several times, even from Orochimaru, that if you ever run into the Uzumaki boy whatever you do don’t let him start a conversation with you, or the fight would end with you weeping oceans of tears because once your father hadn’t let you have an extra serving of ramen.

Not fearing any assault, Sasuke should be taking a proper assessment of his unknown surroundings, finding the danger, planning his escape. That was what the most inexperienced genin would do in this situation. What Sasuke was doing was leaning back against the wall, his arms crossed, his katana hanging untouched at his side, gazing at the vision of Naruto in a full-on temper tantrum. He watched eyebrows twitch and raise so high on his forehead they disappeared under messy blonde locks, the way his whisker marks stood out more than usual against flushed cheeks, the continual presence of white teeth as he snarled and growled through his complaints, and the occasional flashes of pink tongue when he opened his mouth wide to exhale a particularly vehement protest.

Sasuke didn’t bother arguing with any of the anger, everything that Naruto said was true, apart from the fact that their presence here was due to him, and the blonde had long forgotten the actual problem they were facing in favour of telling Sasuake, for, oh, only about the thousandth time, that he’d made a big mistake leaving his ‘friends’ to become Orochimaru’s meat suit. 

‘Do you even realise the pain and heartbreak you put Sakura through?’

If he wasn’t an Uchiha, Sasuke would have rolled his eyes and pointed out that Sakura seemed to be doing a good job at hiding her heartbreak by making babies with the oddity that was Rock Lee. Why did the dobe still, or in fact, ever, think that mentioning Sakura’s supposed pain was his ultimate weapon in getting Sasuke to return?

Even as an Uchiha though, Sasuke could admit to relief when Naruto’s spiel about the many nights he’d had to hold and comfort Sakura until she finally cried herself to sleep, was interrupted by a strange noise.

Sasuke’s hand went to his katana, Naruto’s body tensed into a fighting pose.

The noise definitely wasn’t louder than Naruto’s voice, but there was something penetrating about it. Concentrating on it, Sasuke could identify it was words, some sort of music, but in a foreign language. Naruto started to move towards its source, a flat rectangular shape on the floor by the bed.

‘Careful,’ Sasuke hissed.

‘It doesn’t sound like something that’s dangerous.’ Naruto frowned and dropped down on his haunches. ‘I don’t understand what it means.’

‘Naruto, listen, I am NOT responsible for whatever is happening here. I am NOT in control. I don’t understand what the music is either. You need to be careful for once in your reckless useless life.’

Naruto’s response was to clap in time with the tune.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Seeing what happens if I do what it says, “clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth”, although I don’t know what “a room without a roof” is about? How do you feel like a room? And aren’t roofs on buildings rather than just rooms? Unless maybe it’s a small house with only one room and it’s a hot day and Kiba’s visiting with Akarmaru after having a really big meal. Then you would know incredible happiness if the roof of your house suddenly disappeared. Do you think it’s referring to some sort of jutsu we should be able to do to take buildings apart? Is this one of your new freaky things you’ve been learning? Where do you find all these cool and forgotten things? Your brain is amazing.’ Naruto looked up at Sasuke with wide eyes appearing genuinely interested in his response.

Sasuke paused as he decided whether or not to claim credit for this jutsu after all. It might be better tactically to let the other ninja believe he knew more than he did. Which is why he took his time choosing his reply. Nothing to do with the ache in his chest from Naruto looking at him with such undisguised admiration.  
In the end he said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about I’m just assuming its something to do with the noise. I can’t decipher the language of the music. Not so quickly. This place, us being here, it confuses me as much as you. How can you understand it?’

‘I just listened. You’ve got to relax your brain and not think too much, and then it’ll just form in your mind like you knew it all along but just thought you didn’t.’ Naruto smiled his widest smile. ‘Anyways I thought it was part of the trick, double bluffing me like you’ve done before, when you said this was nothing to do with you, but I believe you now. Sorry about the rant. Although most of it was still deserved. So if it’s not one of your things, it can’t be that bad can it? Let’s find out.’ Naruto picked up the device, which had stopped its music at some point while he was talking.  
Sasuke’s whole body tensed, He imagined Naruto been blown into unrecognisable pieces. And that made him sick with anger. Because he would be the one to kill the dobe, no one else had even come close to earning that right.

Nothing happened. Naruto flipped the device around in his hands with a carelessness that made Sasuke feel as if it was his intestines that were being tossed about.

‘Look, Sasuke, there’s a picture of ramen on it.’ Naruto stood up and moved towards the other teen. Then paused looking down at the katana Sasuke was gripping. ‘I kinda assumed we were on truce terms at the moment, yaknow? Am I right? We’re going to work together and sort this out, yeah? Then you can get back to the usual business of trying to run me through with your sword?’

Sasuke gave a small nod and replaced his weapon at his side.

Naruto held up the device to show him the picture of ramen. ‘Wow, when I touch this side, things change. It’s showing me a picture of me now. Like a mirror. Do you think it’s like one of those soul journey things where you have to fight yourself and see yourself to understand yourself and get stronger, yaknow?’

Sasuke gave the smallest shrug. ‘I wouldn’t know, I never had to do one of those to discover my true power.’

‘Of course you didn’t, teme,’ Naruto muttered. ‘Oh, the picture’s frozen. It’s like of me making an odd face and looking up my nose. What does that mean? Oh, now it’s gone completely.’

‘Perhaps it would be wise to stop playing with something you don’t understand and we should explore the area and actually learn in an intelligent and organised manner what’s going on.’

‘Yeaahhh, wow, cool photos of foxes now. Every time I touch it something new happens. Look at this.’

Sasuke was on the verge of insisting that Naruto obey him and put the device down, when the blonde sidled up to him, holding the device in front of him so that they both could look at it. It took effort for Sasuke not to jump away or to attack the other ninja, it had been years since they had both stood like this, as a team rather than foes. He focused on inspecting the images that Naruto was showing him, no doubt he would see clues that the other boy would miss. The foxes disappeared and another image of little tiny pictures on an orange background appeared.

‘Can you read that yet?’ Naruto said, indicating one that looked similar to a miniature folder. 

Sasuke shook his head, the figures were random nonsense to him. What had Naruto said you did to understand this language, “relax your brain”, which obviously was dobe for being naturally stupid. It may be that Naruto would have an advantage over him in this environment.

‘It says ‘private’ so that must be full of interesting stuff that will help us,’ Naruto explained.

Sasuke sighed. ‘No one capable of this level of jutsu would label anything that supposed to be a secret ‘private’. In fact no one with even the basic level of intelligence would do that.’

‘Not everyone thinks like you. Actually no one thinks like you. I would call my private stuff private because that makes sense.’ Naruto tapped on the screen. 

A high pitched screech came from Naruto’s mouth and the device fell out of his hands onto the floor.  
Sasuke’s mouth fell open. He briefly considered trying to use amaterasu to burn out his own eyeballs, but lost hope immediately with the realisation that he would never ever have the power to burn that image out of his mind.  
After the screech both of them remained in stunned silence. Sasuke would have liked it to stay that way forever. But Naruto was incapable of staying quiet for long. Why hadn’t Sasuke cut his tongue out years ago? That should have been the first thing he did, the instant he’d first heard that annoying loud yell, he should have done it then and saved himself years of earache. And from hearing the next words Naruto said.

‘Was that..is that…important that you’re dressed up like a cat…well, kind of dressed, because you’re mostly…undressed…and I’m…’  
‘Don’t finish that sentence,’ Sasuke hissed.  
‘Touching your…’  
Sasuke punched Naruto as a reflex more than anything else. There was no real force behind it and Naruto only stumbled a few steps forward before regaining his balance. It was with relief that Sasuke saw that Naruto had done the most useful thing in his whole life though by stamping across the cursed device.   
‘Okay, we’re doing this my way. No more touching…’ Sasuke blushed deeply for a moment just from saying the same word that Naruto used in that unfinished sentence ‘…no more putting your hands anywhere they shouldn’t be and aren’t wanted at all. Just look at things. OK? If anything needs investigating then I will do it.’

Naruto’s hands linked behind the back of his head. ‘Yeah, I got it the first time.’ A huge grin appeared on his face. ‘Yaknow, it’s almost worth seeing that private thing just to see you like this frazzled. When was the last time your cheeks were tomato shade? Oh, I remember the last time I saw you like this, it was when we were in the bath house and that thing with the towel and you had to explain to me about…’ Naruto’s voice disappeared into deep laughter. ‘That was so funny.’

Sasuke felt the warmth of his cheeks increase.   
He had to stop himself being distracted, he needed to focus, this was why he had to leave Naruto behind in the first place. An unbidden memory flashes through his head and Sasuke suddenly feels tired and sad.  
‘We are going to get home fast,’ he said, more to himself than Naruto. ‘And then I’ll finish this thing between us as I should have in that first fight after I left. I’m not a sentimental kid anymore. There are no second chances.’

If Naruto heard Sasuke, he didn’t care about the threat as the blonde ninja was bent double in laughter, joyfully lost in his happy memories.


	3. Chapter 3

With his focus now firmly on investigation, Sasuke gazed around the unfamiliar environment. The room was fairly large standard rectangle, there was one door which he hadn’t tried to open yet, and windows that he had cautiously spied around. They appeared to be on the second floor overlooking a garden landscape of grass, trees and bright flowers. The sky was the blue of a certain annoying ninja’s eyes, and although Sasuke didn’t recognise any species, there were creatures identifiable as birds and insects enjoying the warm day outside. He spent time watching all the movement but could not discern any signs of spies or jutsus.

The sound of Naruto bouncing up and down on the bed drew his attention back indoors.

‘I told you to be careful,’ Sasuke said. ‘I thought we were agreed we were working together.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to do what you say.’ Naruto stuck his tongue out. He actually stuck his tongue out at him. The worst thing was that Sasuke was tempted to do the same back to him.

‘This isn’t the time to be a child. We are in an unknown environment that we have every reason to believe is hostile, we need to…’ Sasuke began.

‘The only disturbing thing I’ve seen so far is a picture of you dressed as a cat.’ Naruto interrupted. ‘In the interests of this investigation, shouldn’t we discuss what that’s about?’  
‘That was an enemy tactic to distract us,’ Sasuke said firmly.   
‘Well, whoever our enemy is they sure wanted to addle our brain then.’ Naruto jumped off the bed and pulled at Sasuke’s sleeve with a speed that his father would have been proud of.

Sasuke barely managed to restrain his instincts to slice the other ninja in two and had no idea where he found the restraint to be led across the room to study one of the walls.

‘While you’ve been staring out of the window and daydreaming about how great you are, or whatever fills your evil genius head when you’re not trying to kill me, I’ve explored this room. Look, it’s us.’ Naruto pointed proudly at the display in front of him like a kid bringing back his first good report card.

Unwilling to immediately gratify the younger ninja’s enthusiasm, Sasuke looked everywhere in the room apart from at Naruto. The things he’d glanced at before settled into concrete perceptions. The only furniture was the large bed where he’d woken up, and two bedside cabinets either side. As a whole the room had a discombobulating dual personality. Exactly half the room was painted a pleasing dark blue; the other half was splattered over with a garish orange. The sheet and pillow cases were a stylish red, the duvet cover was the same fluorescent orange as the wall. One of the bedside cabinets was neat holding a lamp, a notebook and pen; the other looked like someone had tried to cram every single piece of junk they owned into it, and when that failed had just randomly thrown things in its direction. And then to finish the effect had spilt something sticky over everything. On the back of the door, two dressing gowns hung, a grey normal one, and, another one, again in that eye-bleeding orange, which was twisted up so much that Sasuke swore that it had to be deliberately that messy. The blue half of the walls was empty apart from a large mirror in a gilded frame directly opposite the bed, and a black and white print of two people. The one nearest the camera seemed deliberately out of focus and, if he squinted, resembled him, behind in focus it was definitely Naruto smiling so widely that his whole face seemed to be teeth and disordered hair.

Only now did Sasuke turn to what Naruto was pointing at. Naruto displayed none of his usual impatience at being made to wait, in fact his face in reality was the same as the one in the picture, radiating joy.  
‘Look at all these photos.’ Naruto waved his hands around wildly. ‘We’re really good friends here.’  
There was a lopsided corkboard at the centre that looked as if it was on the verge of falling off the wall from the sheer volume of things pinned in it. Whoever had done this though, had at some point given up on the relatively small controlled space of the board and stuck photos, bits of paper, postcards, ticket stubs, and many things Sasuke couldn’t identify all over the wall.

‘This isn’t us,’ Sasuke said pronouncing the words slowly. ‘I admit they’ve got the likeness to you very close, but the man in these images looks nothing like me.’

Naruto yanked a photo off the wall before Sasuke could stop him. These things obviously weren’t meant to be touched, because more fell and tumbled to the ground at their feet.

‘Usuratonkachi,’ Sasuke hissed.

Instead of looking insulted, Naruto beamed, ‘I can’t remember when you last called me that.’

‘It’s not a compliment,’ Sasuke said, his calm Uchiha demeanour serving him well to cover his inner frustration. ‘Are you trying to get us both killed? This is some sort of trap or illusion and you’re treating it like a holiday.’

‘No, this is a holiday, look.’ Naruto pushed the photo he held into Sasuke’s face. It depicted their two doppelgangers smiling stupidly with their arms around each other, wearing matching T-shirts with I ‘heart’ NY written across the front. Sasuke tried to ignore the people and look at the vast view of the city behind them to garner some clue, but Naruto flipped the photo around to show the notes scribbled on the back. ‘Can you not read it yet?’ Without waiting for a reply, Naruto put his fingers under the words and read it out to Sasuke. ‘Happy Times!! My Boo surprising me with holiday trip to the Big Apple for my 21st birthday!!!! I am the luckiest guy in the world!!! I wonder what the Big Apple is, wouldn’t the Big Ramen be a better surprise? And what’s ‘a boo’? You don’t think there are ghosts in this world do you? Yaknow I don’t like ghosts. They’re the worst, even the friendly ones are…’

‘Naruto! Please. Be. Quiet.’ Sasuke rubbed his temples. How was he still so much like he had been at twelve? ‘We can work the other bits out later, but if you’re deciphering right…’

‘Of course I am.’ He puffed his chest out. ‘It’s easy. And not my fault your all powerful sharingen eyes can make everlasting fire but can’t even read…’

‘Then the important thing is the age. It says for your twenty first birthday, it gives us a time. How old are you at the moment?’

Naruto shoulders slumped. ‘You don’t know? You don’t even remember that? I’m almost the same age as you. How can you forget…’

‘I don’t know how old I am. It’s not the most important thing to keep track of.’

Naruto’s eyes widened and he peered closely at Sasuke. ‘You’re telling me that you can search the world learning and inventing jutsu no one else has ever dreamed of, probably because they’re so fricking freaky, but you don’t know how old you are?’

‘Try and stay focused on what we’re doing here. ‘Sasuke sighed heavily sensing that Naruto wouldn’t let this one go. ‘Do you really imagine that Orochimaru throws birthday parties for me?’

Sasuke’s voice had been sarcastic, but Naruto dropped his gaze as if the other ninja had just made a sorrowful confession. ‘I’m sorry…I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to bring you home.’

A strange urge to put his arm around the blonde, to offer him comfort, overwhelmed Sasuke for a moment. He bit his own tongue, using the pain to remember who he was and what he was meant to be doing. ‘Just tell me how old you are.’

‘Nineteen,’ Naruto replied, sadness still in his voice.

Nineteen? Numbers swirled around Sasuke’s head, how many years they’d known each other, how long since they last fought together, how long since he had been with Orochimaru, how long since he had been a child. He physically shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for such useless thoughts.

‘So the time here is out of sync with us. That’s important.’ Sasuke was proud how calm his voice sounded. ‘Did you find any other clues? There could be something in the fact that they’ve managed to copy your image so precisely but haven’t got close to me.’

Naruto laughed, he grabbed another photo, this one larger of the two men on a beach. The one that was supposed to be Sasuke wore nothing but a tiny pair of swimming trunks, while Naruto wore bright orange shorts. They had their arms around each other in what could be a friendly manner, but instead of looking at the camera they were staring at each other in a way that for some reason made the real Sasuke blush.

Naruto pulled Sasuke by the sleeve to the mirror and held the photo up in front of them both. ’Make the same expression that the guy in the photo is. No, you don’t have to look at me, look in the mirror, and see, yaknow. No, Sasuke, that is not the same, that is a grimace. No, that’s worse, that is just plain scary. A bit closer, but too smirky. Think happy thoughts, you’re the best ninja in the world, you’ve killed tons of people in horrible ways, if you want every meal for the rest of your life is tomatoes, I’m your best friend.’ Naruto gave Sasuke a playful squeeze. ‘Hey, that’s it. See, that’s a real smile, the same as all the photos. You get it now? The person in the photo is exactly like you apart from he’s smiling all the time. It makes you look so handsome. No, I didn’t say that, I mean, the guy in the photo is kinda handsome. Not you. Not you at all. In fact, I think you’re right he doesn’t look anything like you after all and…’

Sasuke walked away from the babbling blonde whose eyes were crinkled up, his cheeks red and was rubbing the back of his head like he always did on those rare occasions when something happened that managed to embarrass him. He stared again at the board and saw it in a different way. Naruto wasn’t quite right, there were more differences than the smile, the image in the photos was in good shape but not as toned as he was, and the eyes were a dark brown rather than black, but still looking at this man who could be him in so many different places, always with Naruto at his side and always happy, made Sasuke feel as if he was the one that was the fake, as if he was hollow inside.

Naruto appeared silently by his side and started pointing to various things. ‘There’s lots of tickets for something called Beyonce, I made notes on this one that you, I mean the Sasuke here, pretends he hates it but he dances and sings along. Then there’s one for a chamber concert, whatever that is, which I apparently fell asleep in and snored but Sasuke here forgave me because I…um…I can’t quite read that, something about blowing him outside? Do you think that could be important? I can try and decipher it a bit better.’

Sasuke snatched it out of Naruto’s hand and pinned it carefully back on the board. ‘Why are you so happy? We’re in a situation that neither of us are even close to understanding. We don’t know how much danger we’re in, or where that danger is going to come from. All we have is this strange illusion.’

Naruto shrugged, he put his hands behind his head and Sasuke waited expecting another joke about that disgusting photo of him dressed as a cat, but then Naruto’s expression changed to something more serious. It was a face that Sasuke implicitly trusted, the one he knew was always lurking behind the blonde’s brightness, one that displayed openly the loneliness of his childhood and all the insecurities that still remained. It was in these moments, when Naruto’s eyes didn’t shine so brightly, and the marks on his cheeks seemed harsher, that Sasuke felt without doubt that they really were connected. It wasn’t anything that he ever analysed, it was just something that was. He listened to what the other ninja said with a sense that they were as close as if they’d spent every day of their lives together.

‘Yaknow, my belief that I’d bring you back, for a while people supported me, our friends backed me up at every turn. And new people, like Sai, they helped me and stood by my side. Jiraiya had faith that I could make good the mistakes he thought he made with Orochimaru. Then it changed, maybe after Jiraiya died, maybe before. There were other battles to be fought, Tsunade gave me a big lecture about how she admired my loyalty and determination but I had to give it to the people that deserved it not…I won’t say what she called you. And I understood that, my duty, but in my heart I always thought that my first duty was to you, my first friend. What right did I have to call myself a shinobi if I couldn’t protect you? Then Sakura said…’

‘I don’t need to hear the details of what all your idiot comrades said to you. Get to the point. If there is one.’

‘That’s your problem, see, you don’t want to listen. But hey if you want to be like that.’ Naruto stared at Sasuke for a long while as if waiting for some sort of apology or for Sasuke to pretend he really did care to hear every conversation Naruto had had in his whole life. Sasuke glared at Naruto until finally the blonde continued speaking. ‘All right then. Basically everyone tried to make me give up on you. Kakashi said he understood, but he wasn’t convinced that I understood. He made me do recon on the bodies you left behind. The mountains of bodies. Oh Sasuke.’ Tears appeared at the corners of his eyes but didn’t fall. ‘I tried to pretend Orochimaru made you do it, but Kakashi forced me to face the truth. He said that to you I was just a living corpse, something better to experiment on. And I kinda accepted that. And I was willing to live with that because it meant you searched me out, or at least let me find you. I always believed that one day you’d hear me. Then today, or whenever it was, I have no idea what’s going on, but you were coming for me and I was in a lot of pain, more than I thought even I could bear. But the pain didn’t matter, it was the look in your eyes, something I never thought I’d see. I guess because I am the idiot ninja, the worst one ever, true to all those names you call me. I never believed you would actually kill me, but in that instant I knew you were going to. And I had no defence, because despite everything you’ve done, I could never strike you with a blow that I thought would end you. And if you’re going for the kill, and I’m not, there’s only one outcome.’ Naruto stared at the ground, his fists clenched tightly. 

Sasuke’s mouth was dry, even if he wanted to speak, he couldn’t.

Naruto raised his hands behind his head and gave a small giggle. ‘But instead of being dead, I’m here with you and we’re working together sorting out some sort of puzzle. Nothing’s attacking us yet. You’re being pretty nice by your standards. These photos seem kinda fun, and I like all the orange in this room. So anyway life seems pretty good, don’t ya think?’

Sasuke was saved from answering by the ringing out of music, it was a beautiful calm sound, different from the noise from earlier. He located it immediately as originating from the neat dressing gown on the back of the door. It came from a device similar to the one Naruto had played with earlier, except instead of ramen this one had a picture of Naruto himself in a smart unusually normal coloured type of suit that fit him well. On the screen there was something that Sasuke understood was a code. Without thinking and just following his instinct he touched four symbols and it changed to a picture of Kiba. Again leaving his mind blank as Naruto had said, he did what he felt was right and touched a green symbol. Immediately Kiba’s voice, almost as loud as Naruto’s filled the room. But even with his new relaxed way of speaking, Sasuke couldn’t understand a word of it. He passed the device to Naruto and he wasn’t entirely surprised that Naruto began chatting back in the same language. His voice paused and stumbled a few times, But Sasuke felt an unfamiliar admiration, and something akin to pride, listening to and watching the other ninja. His feelings made no sense and he forced them away.

When the talking stopped Naruto turned to him and said with a big smile, ‘So Kiba is pissed because we’re supposed to be hosting something called Japanese Night and he’s been trying to ring me as we were supposed to be meeting beforehand to stock up on supplies but he had to get them all by himself and he’s waiting downstairs for us to answer the door. There were a few more words than that, I didn’t understand but I think they were rude.’

‘It sounds like a trap.’ Sasuke stared at the door they hadn’t ventured out of yet as if the piece of wood itself was going to start attacking him.

Naruto shrugged. ‘Probably. But as your eye abilities are more for the killing in horrible ways than actually being useful like byakugan, we’re going to have to leave this room at some point to find out what’s outside. Unless you want to keep looking through this stuff, there might be another photo of you dressed as a cat…’  
‘Let’s go,’ Sasuke said, immediately touching the door handle. ‘But stay close to me, Naruto, we don’t know what we’re going to face.’

‘I will,’ Naruto said softly and Sasuke for once believed the reckless ninja would.


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto was surprised how easy it was to repress his usual urge to run ahead of Sasuke, kick doors open and face off against anything and everything that could be waiting for them. His instinct for so long had been to compete and argue with the other ninja, but his whole being felt relaxed and somehow ‘right’ just being close to the brunette, watching for, and obeying, his small signals.

They kept together, walking close to the wall down long corridors. Sometimes Sasuke opened doors and indicated Naruto to cover for him, sometimes vice versa. There was something that was both dreamlike and completely natural feeling about Sasuke acting like they were comrades rather than devising new ways to rip his limbs off. Naruto fought not to smile and hoped he managed to maintain a focused, serious, shinobi-Sasuke-could-always-rely-on-to-protect-his-back, kind of expression on his face. Then they passed a mirror and Naruto saw that the impression he gave was more like constipated-for-a-week.

The house was massive, and one of the few times Sasuke spoke was to comment it wasn’t in a style that was familiar to him from any of the large or small kingdoms. Naruto could only agree. The house appeared to be in the process of being decorated by someone with bright, vibrant great taste, and someone who wanted to discover the first paint colour that could actually kill you with its sheer dullness. The rooms occasionally looked like they were in combat with themselves as beautiful oranges were splattered over boring greys. There were cardboard boxes everywhere, some neatly stacked and labelled in Sasuke’s writing, others with ‘Mine’ scrawled over them, were tipped over and thrown about.

‘How does the Sasuke here cope with you?’ Sasuke said under his breath, but clearly intended for Naruto to hear.

Naruto bit back his immediate retort; he would prove to Sasuke that he was an adult now and could be calm and collected and wasn’t so easy to provoke. Plus after so many years, this feeling of friendship was making his whole body glow and float and feel altogether wonderful. He knew if anyone else was here with him, they would think Sasuke was being terse and doing the bare minimum to work together, and even then only for his own benefit, but Naruto’s heart beat with more joy than if everyone else he knew were here declaring their love for him.

Sasuke walked over to one of the boxes, but then the device made its noise, he pulled it out from some hidden pocket (very well hidden, as Sasuke was wearing one of his strange outfits which seemed designed to display all his chest and cling very tightly to his legs, not that Naruto was particularly noticing or looking or ever noticed or looked or anything…)

‘Why are you blushing?’ Sasuke handed the device to Naruto with a suspicious frown. Without waiting for a reply, he continued, ‘It seems to be Kiba again.’

Naruto took the thing and held it to his ear, grateful for the immediate distraction, and also glad that he had some sort of advantage in understanding in this world.

Kiba was in the middle of a rant. ‘Where the hell are you?! How long does it take you to walk to your front door? What are you doing? Noooo, oh, please, pleading to all possible deities that ever existed, do not tell me what you’re doing. You’re not, are you? Oh, but, of course you are, I’m waiting at the front door, with all the takeaway getting cold, and that is the perfect time for you and the bastard to decide to get freaky. Is that why you didn’t meet me, it is, isn’t it? Can’t you keep your hands off each other for one night? You two have been together for years, don’t you know that you’re supposed to have stopped having sex by now like every other normal couple in the world.’ There were a few more words that Naruto didn’t quite catch, but the tone of voice was unmistakable. 

Naruto passed the now silent thing back to Sasuke. ‘Kiba is getting impatient and wants us to get to the door now.’

‘Hnnnnn,’ Sasuke replied.  
Which Naruto interpreted to mean if Kiba was some sort of trap they might as well face it now and explore later.

He followed Sasuke downstairs where a hallway led them immediately to a door. The smell of dog that no simple piece of wood could ever hope to block off, made him certain that it was Kiba on the other side. Sasuke’s senses presumably told him the same thing. He nodded for Naruto to open it, and his hand on the katana, stood back covering the blonde.. Naruto told himself this was because Sasuke trusted Naruto’s skill to defend himself, not because if there was danger he wanted Naruto to take the brunt of it.

With a small intake of breath, Naruto reached forward and swung the door open. A bundle of man and fluff flung themselves at him. Moving with a speed that would have been the envy of his father, Naruto twirled Kiba and the dog out of the arc of Sasuke thrust.  
‘Sasuke! Can’t you tell the difference between a hug and an attack?’

‘Can you?’ Sasuke kept narrowed eyes on their visitor who was panting in Naruto’s arms.

‘Wow! What was that?’ Kiba pushed away from Naruto and stared up at him in unabashed admiration. There was no hint of fear in him. Naruto wondered if this Kiba was incredibly brave or stupid not to be scared of Sasuke. There didn't seem to be even the hint of realisation in Kiba's eyes that Sasuke might kill him. The dog lover chatted happily and obliviously on. ‘I didn’t know a human was capable of moving that fast. Wow. Is this going to be our new greeting now? Way better than a chest bump. And a constant reminder of how I thought I was really tough being a black belt in judo until I was unlucky to make friends with you and be shown how totally useless I am.’

‘You’re not useless, the powers you and Akamaru have are sooo,’ Naruto was unsure how to finish the sentence as he looked down on the Akamaru in this world. The dog looked back with big brown eyes and a wagging tail and didn’t look as if it would win a fight against a lazy kitten.

‘Ahhh, don’t look at Reddy, like that, mate. It’s not his fault that my sister wanted to practice her grooming skills on him, you know my sister, I’m not going to argue with her when she insists that a poodle, even a mongrel poodle, has to look a certain way. Do you remember when she told you you were going to take her to Crufts and you were too frightened to say no, and I know you deny it, but I still swear that it was only the bastard appearing at the end of your date and reclaiming you that stopped her dragging you inside and fucking the gay out of you.’ Kiba laughed, until he glanced over at Sasuke and rolled his eyes at him ‘Hey, it’s not my fault that my sister’s fierce and then some, anyway I don’t want to start that argument again.’ He prodded his finger into Naruto’s chest. ‘And I definitely don’t want to hear about all the many varied ways you had to say sorry to him again! So let’s get this show on the road before everyone else turns up.’ Kiba pushed past Sasuke seemingly entirely oblivious to any threat emanating from the man. ‘Come on, help me with these bags, do you have any idea how heavy all these bottles of sake are, you did get the Japanese whisky for Shino, didn’t you? Although I’m saying that the amount of ramen I have to get just to cover your order is heavier than all the alcohol.’

Sasuke and Naruto exchanged a look as Kiba went outside.

‘I don’t recall him talking so much?’ Sasuke whispered.

Naruto shrugged. ‘He seems to be our friend, I think we should trust him.’

‘Guys, help!’ Kiba shouted. ‘You’re lucky I’m such a good person that I bought and dragged all this stuff already to your house, but now you can stop staring into each other’s eyes and be useful.’

‘I wasn’t staring into your eyes,’ Naruto mumbled as he rushed past Sasuke and went to help Kiba.

Kiba knew his way around this house. Both Naruto and Sasuke followed him to a large room with a substantial kitchen at one end, and two sofas, table and chairs at the others.

Kiba whistled and leaned close to Naruto. ‘Still this place takes my breath away, it makes me wish that I’d taken my chances that time when the bastard was really drunk and sucked him off. I mean, Itachi has given this to you as an engagement present, what’s he going to do when you actually get married?’

Sasuke’s body stiffened at his brother’s name being mentioned. Naruto’s arms were too full of all the bags Kiba had piled there to give the man much physical support, but he stepped closer to him, and gave him a glance which conveyed understanding. From Sasuke’s whole demeanour, Naruto guessed he still wasn’t understanding a lot, if anything, of the language. He needed to concentrate for both of them, and somehow try to convey as much of possible of it to the other ninja. As he was thinking this he realised that he was missing everything that Kiba was saying, something about tropical islands and private heli-something. The dog that Kiba called ‘Reddy’ growled at Sasuke, which diverted Kiba into a whole different conversation about how Reddy liked everyone apart from the bastard and that it was either because he reminded Reddy of a previous owner who misused him or just because he recognised a douchebag when he met one. As he spoke, Kiba unloaded the bags from the two ninja and spread them over the table.

‘Do you think we should start microwaving now, or wait ‘til people get here? I’ll check my phone.’ Kiba pulled one of the devices out of his pocket, it had a picture of Reddy on it, and his thumb flicked quickly over the screen. ‘Looks like people are getting lifts with Gaara and Sakura, so there’ll be arriving promptly and together, so we might as well start heating it up. What extra have you made for tonight?’ Kiba directed the last question towards Sasuke. Sasuke glared at him.

‘Like that then. You and me doing all the work , are we, dude?’ Kiba piled a couple of containers in Naruto’s hands, took some himself and strode across the kitchen. Sasuke remained by the table, inspecting the various foods and bottles of drink. Naruto paused before following Kiba.

Kiba was stirring one of the dishes up with a fork, but his eyes were on Naruto. ‘OK, spill. What’s going on?’ For him and Naruto his voice was at whisper volume, for everyone else it was normal.

‘I don’t know,’ Naruto replied honestly.

‘I don’t either. First, you’re speaking Japanese fluently to him, you don’t even have your usual accent? When did that happen? Did he give you some sort of intensive course or something? Why didn't you mention it before? Did you want to surprise me by leaving me as the only one in Japanese club who can't reliably count to ten? And what’s with the clothes? Were you doing another one of your cosplay things? It’s not a sexual thing is it?’ Kiba looked pointedly in the direction of Sasuke’s outfit. ‘Is it for our night? Is it a traditional Japanese thing? How do you get him to make the effort? I know he’s actually the Japanese person, but it’s always you who pushed the group forward, and it’s only your force of personality that has kept us together meeting even after most people have finished their degrees and moved on. And yesterday you said you weren’t even sure if he’d join us? Have you nagged him into it and that’s why you’re both being so strange?’

‘I can’t nag him into doing anything.’ Naruto’s words flowed of his own accord as his brain was occupied trying to find the essential clues in what Kiba said.

Kiba threw his head back in a loud guffaw. ‘That’s such a lie, when he was drunk, which you know is the only time he deigns to speak to me, he once told me, the only reason he denies you anything is because he likes the way you never give up and always chase him around and look so adorably happy when he eventually lets you have your way. I’m quoting him there, just to be clear, I’ve never looked at you and thought that you look ‘adorably happy’. But, quickly back to the point, have you nagged him too much this time, and he’s having one of his sulks?’

‘Possibly?’

Kiba raised his eyebrows. ‘You tell me everything, bro, what’s up today that you’re being so quiet? I never get to talk this much without you interrupting me. There is ramen, ramen that I lugged over for you, and you’re not pigging it down. You never let me get away with calling the love of your life a douchebag. I mentioned both, you almost getting it on with my sister, and there being a possibility that Sasuke was once drunk enough that I could have seduced him, without you bursting a blood vessel, shouting me down and having your usual hissy fit. And, most noticeably, I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but however many minutes it is, it’s the longest in the whole history of the world, I’ve seen you go without having to touch him. Has something proper serious happened? You’re looking a little rougher than usual.’ Kiba’s face became a picture of concern. ‘We joke around all the time, but you know I’m always here whatever, whenever.’

‘Kiba.’ Sasuke appeared silently by Naruto’s side. ‘This is our special Japanese night, so that is the language we should all be speaking.’

Kiba opened his mouth, but it was a while before words appeared. While Naruto had been able to somehow understand the foreign language, when Kiba attempted to speak the language he called Japanese, Naruto could only frown. Kiba tried three times before Naruto worked out that their group had stopped the Japanese language rule months ago, but if Sasuke wanted it back, Kiba wanted the old forfeit rules back too.

‘Sure,’ Naruto shrugged.

A female voice appeared from nowhere and started singing about ponies and friendship. Naruto and Sasuke tensed and looked sharply around them. As the voice sang ‘I used to wonder what friendship could be,’ Naruto gazed hopelessly at Kiba. ‘Where’s it coming from? What is it?’

‘I get it now, you’re playing one of your hilarious jokes on me. I admit it, you got me, I was really worried about you there, but you pushed it too far pretending that you’re scared of the song that you made Sasuke set as a doorbell. I’ll take my forfeit for not speaking Japanese, but you know I couldn’t express the fact that I’ve worked out what you’re up to in any language but English.’ He stared triumphantly at the blonde. ‘Is my forfeit having to answer the door because you’re too lazy to move? Fine I’ll take it, we all know I’ve done much much worse.’

When Kiba left the room, Naruto turned quickly to Sasuke, ‘Can you understand it now?’

Sasuke shook his head. ‘I've picked up a few things but, I’m still trying to decode the majority. However, I am not oblivious to body language, whatever you were saying to Kiba wasn’t right.’

‘You can’t know that, you just admitted you don’t understand anything.’ Naruto's voice emerged a bit far from the calm, unfazable maturity he was aiming for.

‘He’s worried about your behaviour. From the evidence we’ve seen already the Naruto here has a similar personality to yours, which means Kiba would expect you to be loud and bright, snatching the ramen off him and eating it all as if you’re genuinely starving. On a side note, I myself am wondering how with your gluttonous nature you’ve managed to resist the food, a little thing like it being a trap or poisoned wouldn’t usually be enough to stop you.’

Naruto put a protective hand over his stomach. ‘I don’t feel hungry. The ramen in this world probably would be dogfood compared to what we’re used to.’

Sasuke raised an eyebrow unconvinced, but the hubble of voices coming in their direction seemed to stop the question that was on his lips, instead the dark haired ninja hissed another warning to be careful and alert.

Naruto nodded. He didn’t care that normally he’d feel patronized and insulted that Sasuke kept giving him cautions, but now he was relieved that he didn’t have to answer any more questions about his lack of appetite. He wanted to focus on being happy and relaxed with his first friend, not talk about the sharp pain growing in his belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read this story, I'm enjoying writing it and sharing it. Please forgive any typos or just plain spelling errors, I edit, but still make the same mistakes :(


	5. Chapter 5

Sasuke could feel himself frowning and his body tensing. Carefully he resumed his normal poise. It wasn’t that he felt any danger from this group of people that were familiar but disconcertingly different from the ninjas he had known in his youth. In fact just the reverse. Whatever jutsu was in play it was either of a level beyond anything he had encountered before, or none of the nine people before him had any power at all. And the only things they seemed to be interested in were eating and drinking as much as possible and discussing each other’s sex lives. The stress he was feeling was from the overwhelming amount of information being thrown at him. If this was a test, it was the first one for years that had seriously tried his intellect. He wasn’t even certain whether he should be interrogating them rather than pretending to be the Sasuke they knew. But as they seemed to be throwing masses of information around and withholding nothing, it appeared best to wait longer and try to make sense of the situation before making a move. There was the advantage too, that despite the smiles in the photos, no one seemed to expect Sasuke to converse with them, or be at all friendly. And after a sniff of sake, Naruto was being the loud, bouncy, Naruto they all knew and seemingly adored. 

Right now everyone was being relatively quiet while they thought of a forfeit for Kiba for not speaking Japanese again. Though most people were flipping in and out of languages, Kiba was the one they all picked up on to do dares, probably because he did everything they said with incredible vigour and happiness. Sasuke took the opportunity to think through what he had learned so far and try to work out what was important.

The people gathered were:  
Kiba and his mutt Reddy who had arrived early and had some sort of claim to be Naruto’s best friend here judging by the way he kept looking to the blonde for support. And the way he kept touching Naruto on the arm. Six times so far. And leg. Five times. And when he sat down he sat closer to Naruto than was necessary on the large sofa. And he actually scooped food up with something called a fork and fed Naruto insisting that Naruto try it.  
Sasuke gritted his teeth, when there was so many potential clues here, he didn’t know why his mind kept fixating on Kiba’s relationship with Naruto. Mentally he started again.

The people gathered were:

Kiba and his stinking animal Reddy. He was very relaxed with Naruto.

Gaara who said little but laughed at anything Naruto said that was remotely close to a joke, and was the only one here, who not only met but returned Sasuke’s glare.

Neji who mostly spoke quietly to Rock Lee and Tenten sitting either side of him, but sometimes corrected what someone else had said.

Rock Lee had cried three times since he arrived apparently due to the emotion of this group being together again and holding onto the spring time of their youth.

Tenten chatted a lot, but so far had said nothing that Sasuke deemed relevant. 

Then there was Sakura and Ino. Ino was sitting on Sakura’s lap and when they noticed Sasuke observing them, they began touching each other and kissing, all the times looking at Sasuke rather than each other. Which on one occasion had led to an argument that had obviously been had many times. The accusation was that Sakura and Ino had only pretended to be lesbians so they could go to something called LGBT night with Naruto and Sasuke, and that their act was tired now, with Kiba shouting that Sasuke had made it very clear ages ago no foursomes or threesomes were ever going to happen, followed by the word ‘burn’ and lots of hands gestures. Ino and Sakura had then argued between themselves unable to agree whether they were lesbian or bi, each claiming she was bi and the other was lesbian. Before Shikamaru had shut the whole thing down saying that no one had any right to tell another person what their sexuality was.

Shikamaru worried Sasuke more than the others. At home he was certainly the cleverest, and it would be wise to assume in this world he was also the intellect (not that there was much contest in Konoha, or amongst this drunken group). There had been a couple of brief moments when Shikamaru’s eyes had narrowed in Sasuke’s direction. If any of these clowns had trapped him in this jutsu then Shikamaru would be the one. But most of the time the supposed genius was laughing and joking with the others and paying Sasuke no special attention. 

Choji was the last member of the group, he kept eating saying he needed to build up his physique for something called rugby, and when Ino warned him about being fat he chuckled and said it was all muscle and she could come over and feel for herself whenever she wanted. Which she had wanted to do straight away, with Sakura and even Kiba all joining in, until Choji was rolling on the floor giggling from being tickled so much.

Of more interest than any of the people in this reality though, was the person from his own world. That person who he had dedicated himself to destroying, had spent most of the evening sat next to him holding his hand. At first Sasuke assumed that Naruto was doing it for appearances in front of these familiar strangers, but then Naruto had started moving his thumb over Sasuke’s palm, and Sasuke remembered something they had done when they were younger. It was when even the permanently nonplussed Kakashi had lost his temper with their continuing arguing and ordered them not to speak to each other at all. Naruto responded by taking every opportunity when they were close enough to use his fingers to scrawl messages on Sasuke’s back, or hand, or whatever he could get away with touching. His finger writing was as ineligible as his real writing, but somehow Sasuke understood what Naruto was saying. It started out as simple obvious things like ‘I am going to be a better ninja than you teme’ and ‘when Kakashi isn’t looking I will kick your ass’. But after a while, even after they were allowed to speak again, it developed into more complex things that Naruto wouldn’t say aloud, ‘I still get so lonely’, ‘How do you cope living in your empty house, you’re stronger than me’, ‘I think of you at night when I can’t sleep’, ‘Do you want to come round sometime, the milk is in date this time I promise’.

Today Naruto had begun by valiantly attempting to translate to Sasuke whenever the English language was spoken (Kiba says Reddy says you smell different), which had quickly turned into him just asking questions (what do you think university is?), and ended with him giving comments (if they’re copies why do the people here have different eyes to our friends at home?).

As the gang finally decided what Kiba’s forfeit was and ran as a mass out of the room, Naruto and Sasuke sat alone. Still holding hands.  
‘Should we follow them?’ Naruto messaged on the palm of Sasuke’s hand.

‘You can speak to me normally, dobe,’ Sasuke replied, but he didn’t pull away from the blonde even though they had plenty of room to spread out and no one to pretend coupledom to right now.

‘What do you think it means, yaknow, to shave Kiba’s pubes?’ Naruto’s thumb played seemingly unconsciously over Sasuke’s. 

‘It means that you and I do not want to use any of the razors in this house, ever.’ Sasuke turned his head slightly to look at the other ninja. Naruto looked very young, maybe it was those big blue eyes, but there was something about him that didn’t age. Sasuke felt that despite the life they lived, if he caressed his hand over Naruto’s face he would touch perfectly smooth baby soft skin.

‘We should probably, before they get back, discuss plans, or something, yeah?’ Naruto stared down at the ground, there was a slight flush to his cheeks as if he knew what Sasuke was thinking. Or maybe his own thoughts were causing him to blush? After the noise and confusion of everyone else, the atmosphere was definitely different with the two of them sitting here alone.

Sasuke knew that Naruto was correct, they were in an unknown situation with no idea of what or where the danger was, they needed to compare notes. The blonde was idiotic but he had good instincts, there might be things in the mess of his mind that Sasuke had missed. But all he wanted to do was to sit and gaze at his former friend.  
‘Why have you never given up on me?’ Sasuke asked.

Naruto slowly raised his eyes to meet Sasuke’s. ‘I’ve answered that before. How many times do you need to hear it before you believe me? You’re my friend.’

‘Hnnnn.’ Sasuke took a sip from his sake. He normally didn’t ever drink as he never wanted his reflexes to be impaired, tonight he made an exception and it had relaxed his mind and allowed him to understand more of the strange language. However, it had also made him think thoughts that were as foreign to his normal mental state as this world was. ‘Didn't Kakashi, or Tsuande, or any of the hundreds of people you meet once and then class as ‘friends’, ever inform you, that it is traditional for ‘friends’ not to kill each other?’

Naruto smiled. ‘You haven’t killed me yet, teme.’

‘Come on, even before I left, if you’re honest in your memories, you must realise that all we did was argue with each other. We never had anything close to what anyone else would call a friendship.’ 

‘What about you? Are you honest to yourself? Or do your eyes see only in red and black, blood and hate? If what we have isn’t a friendship, what is it?’ Naruto’s smile disappeared, replaced with a fierce frown. 

Sasuke stared with closed lips at the other ninja. He leaned nearer to him, until their heads were almost touching, but before he could give Naruto an answer, the sound from earlier, the strange singing about ponies and friendship broke out and Naruto jumped to his feet.

‘That’s the door, Kiba said that meant there’s someone at the door. I’m going to see who it is.’ Naruto raced off before Sasuke could accompany him or warn him to be cautious. 

Waiting alone, Sasuke downed the rest of his drink and listened absently to the sounds of the house. He could hear the giggles and excitement of the main gang doing Kiba’s forfeit. And he could hear Naruto returning with two other pairs of footsteps. Naruto chatted away but the others weren’t speaking. There was nothing nervous in the blonde’s voice, so the new arrivals were probably in the image of more of his ‘friends’.

Sasuke gritted his teeth in anticipation, but instead of coming back to him Naruto walked towards the sound of the others.

‘Idiot,’ Sasuke hissed at the realisation Naruto had decided to join the main party. ‘We need to stay together.’ As he spoke to the empty room, Sasuke bit his lip, he didn’t even know if his words were true. Naruto was capable and had survived much worse situations, it might actually be sensible to divide and explore this world separately. But he looked at the place where the other ninja had been sitting just a moment earlier, he traced over the fabric that was still warm with the blonde’s body heat, and wished that wherever they were they would be given the time to finish the conversation they had been having in one way or another since the moment they first met.


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke lay on the bed next to Naruto. Both men were fully clothed, on their backs staring up at the ceiling. The walls painted orange glowed in the light of the dawn sun shining through their window. The traditional signal of the beginning of a new day for most of the world, apparently for this group of friends meant the end of the night’s partying and that it was time to sleep. Despite Sasuke’s judgement of them all being weak, they had all shown remarkable endurance in staying alert through some of the most tedious conversations Sasuke had ever suffered through. If there was some clue in the number of times Sakura wanted reassurance about having dyed her hair pink, Sasuke decided very early on that he couldn’t be bothered to find it.

The two late arrivals to the party had been Sai and Shino. In his own world, Sasuke had been indifferent to Shino, and felt an immediate animosity to Sai. He didn’t know why the ninja with his simple drawing techniques bothered him, for a while he’d considered it that creepy smile, but had had to dismiss that in face of the evidence that Sasuke’s main companion of choice through his teenage years was Orochimaru. When your normal was a man whose body produced snakes to pass you the vegetables at meal times, nothing else really registered as ‘weird’. After a while he recognised that the irritation with Sai could stem from the fact of watching him and Naruto work together, if he was going to be replaced in Team 7, surely Naruto deserved a better partner than that? Sakura at least earned her place through her dedication to medical ninja, but what could Sai offer Naruto, the occasional ride on a badly scribbled bird? Not that Sasuke could think of any ninja in Konoha or beyond that was worthy to fight alongside the unpredictable blonde. Naruto wasn’t conventional, but he was…special. Perhaps most frustratingly, Naruto didn’t even seem to realise how inferior Sai was to him. If Sai had been partnered with him before Sasuke, if Sai had been sought out by Orochimaru (not that the legendary Sanin would ever have any use for that particular useless set of skills), would Naruto have chased after him with the same energy as he had pursued Sasuke all these years?  
Sasuke physically shook his head. His thoughts kept getting diverted in useless directions. In this world at least, Sai was amusing. From what Sasuke could gather, Sai had not been invited, but had spotted Shino and tagged along with him to the party. The reason Sai had not been invited, appeared to be that none of the others liked him. When they made jokes he stared blankly, before asking, ‘Is that meant to be funny?’ then barked out a louder and longer laugh than anyone else. He frequently told people that they were boring him, but if they wanted he could pretend to look interested even though he would no longer listen to a word they said. He questioned in a very pleasant voice how Kiba managed to stink worse than his dog and whether he let Reddy sleep next to him as he was paralysed with the loneliness that he’d never find a real person to love him and share his bed.

‘What are you smirking about?’ Naruto interrupted his thoughts.

Sasuke turned his head to see the blonde staring at him, he was surprised that Naruto’s eyes were so bright and awake, he expected the blonde to be falling into one of his deep slumbers by now.

‘I was thinking about Sai,’ Sasuke replied. ‘Your idiot friends didn’t seem very happy to have him here even though he appears to be one of the few Japanese people in your Japanese club.’ 

‘You’re, I mean, the Sasuke here is Japanese, or half Japanese or something that makes your skin paler than other people from Japan. And so is Shikamaru and Shino and Neiji and Tenten. So that’s,’ Naruto counted off on his fingers, ‘Six with yaknow, S..ai. I think Rock Lee might be too, but I couldn’t quite work it out, he kept hugging me and saying how our youth would never end as long as we held onto our close friends. Japan is a country made up of different islands which is on the other side of the world. There’s one little island where lots of cats live and you and I, I mean Sasuke and Naruto here love going to visit it. Sasuke here likes animals, he gives money to cat rescues, and he covered for me when I got into trouble where we used to live in a rented place. I rescued a baby fox from some people who were trying to hunt it, and I looked after it even though it stunk and pissed all over everything. By the way we’re in a place called Oxford which is in somewhere called Britain. And even though we’re old here, we’re still students, not because we’re rubbish and never qualified, but because we’re so good we want to learn more. We read books and things rather than fight. I kinda thought it sounded boring at first, but if I’ve worked it out right, I’m some sort of person who is studying people so I can understand them better and help them. It sounds cool, doesn’t it, being able to help people just by doing some reading, and without having to, yaknow, kill anyone? Well, maybe not so much to you, as you’re not much with the helping, and enjoy the killing, but…’

Sasuke held his hand up to indicate for Naruto to stop talking. ‘You can tell me all about what kind of losers could possibly benefit from your help, after you tell me why your eyes darkened when I mentioned Sai and you quickly changed the subject.’

Naruto rubbed his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t feel very comfortable around him. He wasn’t like my friend from home.’

Sasuke sat up in bed and stared pointedly down at the blonde. ‘None of them are quite like the people from home, what was it about him? Think, dobe, you do know them all better than me, you understand this English language far better than me, so it is well within the realms of possibility that you have stumbled upon something important.’  
‘Nooo, I don’t think it’s that, it’s just something else.’

‘Tell me so I can be the judge. We’re supposed to be a partnership here.’ ‘Partnership’ was the key word, it had slipped off Sasuke’s tongue, but from the smile that darted over Naruto’s lips he knew immediately that it made the other ninja relax.

‘Ok, but don’t complain to me about wasting your time, and me being stupid. Remember, you asked.’ Naruto sat up too now, pushing himself back against the headboard of the bed. ‘It was the way Sai was, but it wasn’t just that, it was things the others said. Mainly Kiba, but Shino apologised to me, saying he didn’t know how to get rid of him once Sai started following him as he didn’t want to make it into a thing if I didn’t want to make it into a thing, whatever that means. Then Shikamaru and Tenten were both concerned about how you’d react, Sakura said she’d punch him back out on to the street if I wanted. Gaara even stopped drinking alcohol saying that you were acting odd tonight so he’d look out for me. But I guess you probably noticed all that awkwardness and stuff.’ Naruto sighed. ‘I kinda said everything was fine, and we were all friends and I was trying to be nice to Sai because everyone else was being so strange to him. I thought it was like at home, yaknow, sometimes he says the wrong thing, but he’s just the same as all of us, a bit lonely, a bit scared, trying to feel his way and make friends. But then he started showing me these pictures on his device thing, his phone thing. It was stuff he’d painted he said for me, and it was all like lots of colours and shapes, so I don’t know why, but I saw you being…hurt, and me being…with him. And I told him his pictures made me sad, and he said he knew ways to make me feel very happy.’ Naruto bit his lips. ‘And he said other stuff at other times, through the night, it was kinda a bit like things Kiba joked about, but it wasn’t a joke, yaknow? Like, how I was selling myself to you just to get a big house, and that I was just a toy to you. Which is strange, and maybe, why I was too sensitive, as that’s what they said in our real world, that you just used me to experiment with your jutsu on, that you didn’t care for me at all. And then, it got even weirder and he started trying to…’ Naruto’s normally loud voice faded into nothing. ‘I didn’t know what to do, even though, yaknow, I think I’m a lot stronger than him.’ Naruto shrugged. ‘But it was fine, there were lots of people around and they seem to all know what’s going on a lot better than I do.’ Naruto forced a smile.

Sasuke slid off the bed. ‘Wait here,’ he ordered Naruto through barely opened lips.

He wasn’t conscious of any thoughts in his head as he left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. All these people in the image of Naruto’s friends had been confident when they bedded down, pulling out sleeping bags and blankets from cupboards, rushing to claim the bedrooms that actually had beds in them. Sasuke had held back, noting and memorising where all of them went. There had been lots of giggling and teasing about what the safe sound range for Sasuke and Naruto’s room was. Apart from Sai, who had silently taken his bedding and chosen the room opposite theirs.

Sasuke mentally cursed himself, in the confusion of trying to decipher so much information, something so obvious had been missed.

He kicked the door of Sai’s room open, splintering the lock apart. Sai was sitting cross legged on the floor, smiling as if he’d been waiting for him.

‘Naruto is only with you because you caught him so young,’ Sai said as if they were in the middle of a conversation. ‘He thinks he needs you because he thinks you rescued him. It isn’t healthy. You’re fully aware of this obviously, which is why you’re so desperate to marry him.’ Sai’s smile widened. ‘As if putting a ring on his finger will stop him from realising that he’s not a scared little kid anymore. I’m genuinely interested in your opinion, how long do you think you’ve got left, how many kisses, how many cuddles, how many extravagant holidays, before Naruto finally knows that he’s a grown man with a lot more options available to him? How long until he starts seeing all the many many people who can offer him a lot more happiness and pleasure than an emotionally disabled freak like you could ever be capable of?’

In two short strides, Sasuke reached Sai and grabbed him by the collar. He dragged him out of the door and down the stairs. Sai didn’t resist, his body thumped against the ground, but if it hurt he seemed oblivious.

‘This is what you are, isn’t it, Sasuke, all you are? A violent animal. I pity you, I see you fighting so hard to suppress your true nature in the useless hope that Naruto will remain blind to the creature he’s mistakenly tied himself too.’

With his free hand Sasuke opened the front door and pulled Sai out. He pinned the still smiling man against the rough wall of the house.

‘How many people who could give Naruto real love have you managed to scare off with this brutal temper of yours?’ Sai said. ‘Not that I’m pretending I’m offering him romance and starlight, but my lust is still far superior to your delusions of a relationship. To make it clear, I am not in the least scared of you, or your Uchiha reputation.’

Sasuke stepped back from the man, he let go of him and allowed him to flop to the floor. ‘You don’t need to be scared, I promise if you come anywhere near my home or my fiancé again I’ll slice you open so fast your tiny brain won’t have time to register what’s happened. It’ll almost be painless, so nothing for you to worry about at all.’

Sasuke walked back into the house. The strange doorbell music was playing, he must have pressed Sai against it without noticing. The only person who appeared to have reacted though was Gaara who stood cross armed at the bottom of the staircase. He gave Sasuke a small nod before turning on his heel and disappearing back into the lower floor. Sasuke climbed the stairs and made his way back to Naruto who still sat upright on the bed. He looked like he hadn’t moved since Sasuke left, but he had a pile of photos in his hands.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Naruto asked keeping his eyes on the photos.

‘I’ve been suppressing my true animal violent nature and restraining myself from killing people who deserve to die.’

‘That’s good?’ Naruto looked up now with raised eyebrows.

‘We need to be extra aware of the power of the world, it might lead us to think things, feel things that seem incredibly real, but have nothing to do with who we really are.’

Naruto frowned. ‘That’s more cryptic than your previous warning to be careful, so I’ll assume that you’re in shock because someone has properly annoyed you and for you used to slaughtering innocents it was hard to hold back and be careful until we know what we’re facing in this world before we go on a murder spree?’ Naruto patted the bed next to him. ‘Anyway, far more important than our potential escape plan to get back home I’ve found some really cute cat pictures.’ His cheeks flushed momentarily. ‘Not you dressed as a cat, just real kittens and things, maybe from the cat island in Japan the Sasuke here is fond of.’

Sasuke came and sat next to the other ninja, but he placed his hand under Naruto’s chin and drew the blonde to looking at him. ‘Be serious for a moment longer. I think we can use the phones in this world to keep in constant contact. I’ll find out how they work properly. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but we can be prepared. If Sai comes near you again, or anyone else that makes you feel uncomfortable, call me and I’ll be by your side. It’s a ridiculous thing for me to say, seeing the different manners in which the two of us have chosen to live our lives, but I’m going to say it anyway.’ Sasuke took a deep breath. ‘You are incredibly strong, I fully acknowledge that. Understand it makes you no less strong, if you have a situation where you’re unsure, or scared, and you need my help.’ Sasuke dropped his hand back to his side. ‘This place is confusing me, who knows what it’ll do to your mess of a mind? Now, show me your cat photos.’

Naruto paused for a long time before the smile reappeared on his face and he started passing Sasuke the happy mementos of a Naruto and Sasuke from a world so completely foreign to their own.


	7. Chapter 7

Sasuke frowned down at the teardrop shape marring the piece of paper he had been reading. He touched a finger to his eyes and felt the moistness there as another drop of water fell onto the typed sheet. Had he picked up some ocular infection in this strange world? Hastily he closed the folder shut, through his investigations he was gaining a respect for the Sasuke of this world, he seemed to cope with the chaos of his environment by being meticulously organised and Sasuke felt a reluctance to disturb any of his good work. Everything was clearly labelled, Sasuke ran his fingers over the spines of the folders and boxes he had most recently been researching through. With so much still carefully packed away, it was both interesting and confusing that the things this Sasuke had given so much prominence to in the room that was apparently his ‘study’ were useless nostalgia. All of it should really be in a trash can, but instead it was preserved and dated: ‘Pebbles and seashells Naruto collected on first coastal trip’, ‘Dried and pressed flowers Naruto picks for me’ (there were so many in here that Sasuke imagined there couldn’t be an orange or yellow flower left in this world that Naruto hadn’t found and gifted), ‘First Takeaway we shared’ (a whole box containing other small boxes), ‘Cards Naruto makes me’ (this folder was subdivided into anniversaries, birthdays, random celebrations Naruto creates).

A hand touched Sasuke’s back. He hated being touched, his instincts were finely honed to an ‘attack-first-ask-questions-later’ setting, but somehow this touch, from this person, overrode all his training and his body relaxed rather than tensed.  
Naruto’s fingers scribbled one of their messages out.  
Are you all right? Are you crying? 

‘You can speak out loud, dobe,’ Sasuke said. ‘And I am not crying. It is just an eye…thing.’

Naruto frowned concern. ‘You’re not straining yourself are you? You’ve been up here for ages going through all this stuff, the others are wondering what you’re up to. Apparently the Sasuke here normally cooks all the meals, I’m not allowed near the kitchen without supervision, I kinda almost burnt one of our places down making a late night snack or something.’ Naruto giggled. ‘Although that was your fault because you were trying to get me to eat something other than instant ramen. See I’m learning lots from talking and interacting with people, you should try it.’

‘Hnnnnn.’  
Naruto folded his arms over his chest and Sasuke was surprised to feel he missed that light touch on his back. ‘And Kiba and I’ve been messing about in something called the cosplay room, which is like dressing up basically. It’s really fun, the Sasuke here does it all the time with Naruto, they’ve like won prizes and things. They go to special events, and there is so much stuff in there. Kiba was like worried that you’d mind him putting on your costumes, and I said totally honestly that you didn’t give a damn.’

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. ‘You put everything back where you found it, didn’t you?’

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and gave a sheepish grin.

‘We still have no idea what things are important, we need to move carefully in this world. As I keep telling you.’

‘They have this really really cool weapon called a lightsaber.’ Naruto started making a strange buzzing sound.

‘A weapon? Why didn’t you mention that to begin with.’

‘No, it’s not a real weapon, it’s like a pretend weapon from a pretend world, a like totally made up story thing, but we’ve got replicas of them, which Kiba is jealous of because they’re really expensive replicas apparently. But if it was real it would be really cool. Much better than shuriken. I mean, have you killed anyone ever with a shuriken? No, you better not answer that, I don’t want to know, but yaknow, whenever I even think I’ve got a hit with one, it always turns out to be a fricking log! Anyway, lightsabers are great you should come see them.’

‘You think it is a good use of my time to play with fake weapons?’ 

‘Yaknow, it’d be good research, you could probably make it into a real thing with all your skills. And it tells us more about this world. Could be important. One of my favourite characters to dress up as, uses a lightsaber, that might be really important? You do someone called Hans Solo, and I am Princess Leia. And my other favourite is someone called Daenerys who like has pet dragons. Think yaknow, if we’re winning prizes with having to wear wigs and things, what’ll it be like with me able to actually use my sexy jutsu change into a real woman?’ Naruto beamed so brightly that Sasuke almost returned the smile, he caught himself in time and instead frowned at the other ninja’s frivolity.

‘Ok, then, so you’re determined not to be impressed with anything I’ve discovered and obviously think you’ve found out more than me hidden away on your own, so share your secrets.’ Naruto had the same taunting challenge in his voice that he’d had when he was twelve.

Sasuke shook his head slowly, did the blonde really think he’d done good research messing about with Kiba? An image flickered unbidden into Sasuke’s brain of Naruto and Kiba dressing up together, or rather more specifically, of them getting undressed together as they changed costumes.  
‘When’s Kiba leaving?’ The words blurted out. That wasn’t what he intended to say at all. ‘I mean, when are they all going? Why are they staying in our…this house still? They’re in the way.’

‘How can they be in the way when you’re hidden up here on your own? And besides they seem to be our friends and helping us, so why do you want them to leave?’

‘Just tell me when they’re all going to be gone.’

Naruto shrugged. ‘Tomorrow I think. This is supposed to be a big reunion thing, we don’t get to see each other much anymore as lots of us live in different places. But Kiba does live around here, so he’ll hopefully always be around. Anyway, stop changing the subject, I see what you’re doing, I asked you what you’ve learned that is so much better than lightsabers and you’ve got zilch.’

Sasuke selected a folder and handed it to Naruto. ‘Of interest, although I am not certain of its importance yet, Naruto isn’t your birth name in this world, it is a nickname Sasuke gave you. What does seem important is that the two of them met on the internet, do not worry about the details yet, I’ll explain later if necessary, just accept it is a technology that connects the whole world and means people in different places can talk to each other.’

‘Like the Yamanaka’s clans mind talky techniques?’

‘Mind talky? Naruto, how are you even as good as you are when you’ve got such a limited brain power to work with?’ Sasuke mentally told himself not to be distracted (yet again!) from the main thing he should be focusing on, which was right now trying to push information into the dobe’s head. ‘No, it’s nothing like that. As far as I can tell, if there are ninja in this world they keep their talents secret and hidden. To continue, Naruto and Sasuke found each other on this internet and formed some sort of friendship. Sasuke helpfully, has printed out a lot of the e-mail messages, which are like letters in this world, that Naruto sent him, though unfortunately none of his own.’

‘Did you say this internet thing connects the whole world?’

‘Yes, but don’t worry about the details, focus on the important…’

‘So out of all the people in the world on the internet they found each other?’

Sasuke opened the folder to the first printed out sheet of paper and pointed for Naruto to read the few words on it.  
Naruto read aloud, ‘Hiya! I’m so happy you picked me as your language friend! My foster parents said my profile was too honest, which I think means weird, and that no one would reply, but you have and you seem cool so it doesn’t matter that no one else has now I can chat to you. I don’t go to school at the moment as I was getting bullied. My foster dad is teaching me some self-defence, and my foster mum teaches me everything else. I was supposed to find a French person to chat to as that’s what I’m meant to be learning, but I think Japan is much cooler. Can you tell me all about ninjas, samurai, martial arts and ramen please. Your English is already really good in your e-mail, no mistakes or anything, but I’ll try and help you if I can. Byeeee.’ Naruto looked up at Sasuke. ‘What are foster parents?’

Sasuke had an urge to take the folder away from the blonde, suddenly it didn’t seem so important to share this information with him. He rationalised against himself, Naruto was an adult, he wouldn’t be unduly affected by things that had happened to someone who might look like him, but wasn’t him. But even though Sasuke’s voice remained calm, there was a constriction around his heart as he spoke. ‘Here, like with you, Naruto’s birth parents died when he was a baby.’  
The words were so simple but the unmistakable flicker of pain across the other ninja’s face caused Sasuke’s chest to hurt.  
He actually had to pause for a moment before he could speak again. ‘I’m sorry that that is the same here, that there is no chance to meet them in this world.’   
Naruto’s eyes widened at Sasuke’s sympathy. ‘I…it’s…I did think of it, because you know, it seems like Itachi is alive here and I mean I…’  
Sasuke reached out and squeezed Naruto’s hand. ‘You don’t have to say, I understand. I just wish it could be different for you, you deserve more happiness than you’ve ever been given.’ Sasuke felt shocked at both his words and gesture. Quickly he dropped Naruto’s hand and focused back on just imparting plain information. ‘In this world, if there is no other relatives to look after an orphan, the child goes into something called care homes until a new family can be found. Sometimes there isn’t much care in either the homes or the new family though. Naruto got moved about a lot, he developed what they call behavioural problems, and he…’ Again Sasuke questioned if there was really any reason to share the things he’d learned with the blonde, but again he tried to be logical, saying there was no reason not to share it. ‘And he ended up in some bad places.’  
He flicked through the folder of e-mails to the one he had been looking at before Naruto came in.

Sasuke was relieved that Naruto didn’t ask any questions, but just started reading it. ‘Sasuke, it’s strange how I can be more myself with you than anyone else. I know people are supposed to use the internet to lie and create new different versions of themselves, but writing these e-mails to you frees me from the lies of my life and lets me be more honest with you than with anyone I’ve ever met in real life. I tell you things I never told to the police, or social workers, or anyone.   
And you know better than anyone how grateful I am to my foster parents, every day I wake up in this nice house with food and friendly faces, and I know they’ve saved me, but as wonderful as they are, I can never connect to them like I do with you. I feel I have to keep smiling, keep being positive, be careful with every single thing I say, because if I do anything wrong, they’ll send me away. I know they would hate to know I feel like this, that it’s in my head, not anything to do with the way they treat me, but I can’t change it.  
You are my first and only friend. I don’t know if it makes sense, but I want to be my best in my friendship to you, but I know if I’m my worst, if I shout and argue, and punch and fight and throw things, and get everything wrong, you’d still be there. That doesn’t make any sense does it? Because we’re miles and miles away from each other. But I hope you understand what I mean. And I feel it for you too. If you’re your worst, whatever that’d be, because at the moment you seem perfect, it wouldn’t matter, I’d always be there for you.   
I sometimes forget that we’ve never met, that there werre all these years of my life before I knew you. It’s like with these e-mails we’ve exchanged bits of our souls and our beings have become entwined for all time, past, present and future.  
Does that sound right? I think things like this deep in my spirit, but it’s not the sort of thing I ever say to anyone. But before you I’ve never had anyone who I would want to say it to.  
I guess I better start writing about what I intended to write about when I started this e-mail. You asked me months ago what my nightmares were about, and you shared the things that make you scared to fall asleep, so now I’m going to tell you. The long delay wasn’t because I don’t trust you, it’s that I don’t trust myself. I’m frightened of being that person he said I was. He said I had a demon in me that he needed to cut out and that…’ Naruto’s voice trailed off into a whisper and then silence.

Sasuke watched Naruto carefully. The lips at first moving as he read, and then the mouth just hanging open. The hands unconsciously touching his own face as he learned how the Naruto in this world got those facial marks. The eyes widening with the tears at the corner, which unlike his own, didn’t fall.  
Finally Naruto gazed at Sasuke and for a while neither of them spoke. Naruto touched Sasuke’s back, his fingers flickered as if he was going to do another of his scribbled messages, but instead he moved his hand to the bare skin at the nape of Sasuke’s neck and let his touch rest there.  
Sasuke sat still for as long as he could and then gently moved Naruto’s hand. It wasn’t that it was unpleasant. In truth, it was the reverse. It made him think and feel things that weren’t…appropriate at any time, but especially not now.

‘I thought this world was better than ours.’ Naruto spoke slower and quieter than normal. ‘Being with all our friends, all of them safe, uninjured and alive, and they worry about things like writing essays and getting the job they want, none of them have ever had anyone try to kill them, or ever had to fight to defend themselves, I don't know, it all made me think this world worked better.’ His eyes momentarily dropped. ‘There was that thing with Sai, but I thought that that was my fault, that I’d done something wrong because I didn’t understand how…things work properly.’

‘It was not your fault,’ Sasuke said with fierce eyes. ‘Never think that.’

Naruto gave the smallest of smiles, but even the smallest Naruto-smile gave Sasuke more sense of life and light than anyone else could. He was glad the blonde still had some joy left in him after reading through the long and vivid descriptions this world’s Naruto had written to this world’s Sasuke. Sasuke wondered at that level of trust, to share their deepest and darkest memories, between two people that had never met. Did anyone trust him that much? If things had been different in his life, could him and Naruto had had that connection? He looked into those bright blue eyes and was struck with the realisation that, he who avoided social contact, said as little as possible, and nothing ever private, wanted to tell Naruto every thought he’d ever had. It was a strange sensation that made Sasuke’s heart beat fast. It took longer than normal to return to his customary calm.

Naruto continued speaking. ‘I liked the idea that in this world I’m smart and studying and helping people in ways that are about talking, because yaknow I’ve never liked having to hurt people to protect other people as however it turns out everyone is a person with a story that got them to where they were and if you can listen to them maybe they’ll listen to you. But why…how can such…I mean, in this world, I know bad bad things happen in our world, you probably know way more than me, but why, Sasuke, why would anyone hurt a kid like that? How could someone do these things to me?’

‘It’s not you,’ Sasuke said. ‘These things didn’t happen to you.’ Since he learned about the life of this Naruto, a constant voice in his mind had been reassuring him, ‘It’s not my Naruto, it didn’t happen to my Naruto.’

‘But it is me and it did happen. As soon as I read it, it’s like I feel it and remember it. I know it’s not a memory of something that actually happened to my physical body, but it’s like it becomes part of who I am and that it’s always been that way. Like what I wrote to you about knowing you and our souls being entwined, I mean, not that bit, well, I do feel that bit, but I meant about when I wrote about you being past, present and future. That’s what it’s like, it becomes part of me forever and I can’t remember it ever being different.’

Sasuke held a hand out to indicate Naruto to stop talking. He needed quiet and to focus properly, some small part of him only wanted to question Naruto about what he meant about feeling that their souls were entwined. Actually it was quite a large part and he had difficulty repressing it. But it was these distractions which were preventing him solving the puzzle of being in this world. He had been considering some sort of slippage or transference between the people who lived in this world and themselves based on things such as the fact Sasuke had known all the passwords instinctively. But he’d decided that it was some primal connection between similar people in different worlds. He should have thought more about it, especially considering Naruto had known the language immediately, he should have studied Naruto’s ease in this world and investigated that further. But he hadn’t.

‘Do you still have your real memories? Do you remember the first time you and I met?’ Sasuke asked.

‘Yes, I’m not going mad. I know what happened to me and what happened here, though the Naruto here probably has better memories with you so maybe I could borrow some of them. I bet his Sasuke hasn’t tried to kill him ever, let alone a zillion times.’

‘Naruto, he lives with you, you make everything a mess and paint it all orange, and just look at this diary for example, he spends ages planning out meals and shopping lists and you cross it all out and write ramen on every page, which seems to be about the only word you’ve bothered to learn in his language despite knowing each other for years and how close you are. Of course he’s tried to kill you. Maybe not in as violent and thought out manner as you and me, but believe me he’s tried.’ Sasuke gave a half smile. 

Naruto responded with a booming laugh, but it died out too soon and was replaced with a frown. ‘Have you looked through all these things? Does it work out OK for Naruto and Sasuke here?’

Sasuke sighed. But there was no point holding anything back now, Naruto had seen, and apparently experienced, the worst already. Sasuke flicked through the folder to where a photo was clipped in. ‘When Sasuke and Naruto begun talking, Naruto had already been rescued from what he described in that e-mail. This is the first picture he sent to Sasuke, it’s of him and his foster parents, and from everything he wrote he was very happy with them.’

Naruto peered at the print. ‘They look like Jiraiya the old pervert and Granny Tsunade.’ Hope covered Naruto’s face. ‘Are they near here? Can I meet them? Can I see Jiraiya again? Just once more before we go home?’

Sasuke’s stomach twisted. Maybe the worst wasn’t out there yet. Why didn’t he think through these things more? Thinking was his expertise. But more to the point, why was he in such anguish at giving a little emotional pain to someone he’d spent so long plotting how to kill in the most excruciating way possible? While Sasuke paused in his reply Naruto was continuing to jabber on, getting more and more excited about the prospect and promising Sasuke all sort of ridiculous things if he could make it happen.

‘He’s dead,’ Sasuke interrupted. ‘Your foster father, I mean this Naruto’s foster father died. His job was working with troubled kids, and one was obviously a lot more troubled than the others and stabbed him.’ Naruto’s body slumped but Sasuke kept speaking. ‘After his death, the foster mother didn’t cope very well, she turned to gambling and alcohol, and Naruto got taken away from her and put back into the care home. But after his previous experiences Naruto ran away. He got in touch with Sasuke a couple of times but there isn’t much. And from what I can work out, Sasuke ran away himself and came all the way to this country to find Naruto on his own.’

Naruto’s body straightened up, he gazed at Sasuke with wide eyes. ‘In this world you chase after me and save me?’

Sasuke was on the verge of correcting Naruto that it isn’t them who did any of these things, but instead he just said, ‘Yes.’

Naruto smiled widely. ‘Maybe, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, because you’ve done a better job than me, we live together, we have friends, and we’re happy. Whereas when I’m trying to save you, there’s piles of dead bodies and I spend half my life in the hospital.’

Quietly Sasuke said, ‘I think it may have actually been Itachi who found you. He came after me. I mean he came after this world’s Sasuke.’ 

Naruto threw his arms around Sasuke in a tight bear hug. Sasuke was surprised but didn’t push him away or protest, he breathed in Naruto’s scent which even now made him think of warm summer evenings goading each other into training harder and longer with over the top boasts. Well, Naruto’s boasts were over the top, he’d simply been stating facts about his own superiority.

‘You want to see Itachi,’ Naruto said in a voice that made those simple words, and that dreaded name, sound reassuring.

Sasuke felt young in Naruto’s arms, not in a vulnerable way, but more in a safe way, that someone else was looking after him, that he could relax and it would be all right. He couldn’t remember when he last felt like this. The part of him that was used to being in control, wanted to fight the feeling, to insist that it was Naruto who was the child, that he needed to stay alert, that he was the only one who could restore normality and get them home, that it was Naruto who was having his emotions strained by this world, not him. But for once that part of him didn’t win.  
Sasuke nodded his head against Naruto’s chest and gave a soft, ‘Hnnnnn.’

Naruto somehow managed to hug Sasuke even tighter. ‘I know it’ll be tough. I know you’ve convinced everyone else that you’re an emotionless killing machine, but I know it’s because you feel things so deeply that you work so hard to hide them. All you have to know is that I’m here for you and whatever you want to do we’ll do it together.’

‘Itachi could be the trap this world is setting for us,’ Sasuke murmured.

‘Don’t worry about that now.’

‘When should I worry about it? When we’re stuck in an endless genjutsu in an alternative world that we’re never going to escape from?’

‘That does sound like a good time to start worrying.’

Sasuke meant to push the stupid ninja away and focus back on his research, but instead he realised that his arms, of their own volition, had curled around Naruto’s body and were hugging him back. He told himself he should pull them away, but instead he consciously snuggled a little closer into the annoying blonde.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, thank you so much for staying with this story of mine and continuing to read it. I'm so grateful to you all for taking the time out of your day and choosing to give this your attention.
> 
> I'm away for a while so don't know when I'll be able to do the next update but I am thinking of things all the time, so even when I am nowhere near a computer I'm still writing it. In a mental kind of way that involves no actual writing, but as you've got this far into my creative work, I am hoping we're on the same wavelength and you'll understand exactly what I mean :)

It happened so fast.  
Naruto was aiming to explore outside the house, something Sasuke hadn’t done yet, and return with something that would impress the unimpressible ninja. He strolled out of the front door full of confidence.  
Perhaps he wasn’t concentrating on what he should be concentrating on, such as the whole world outside his head.  
Perhaps he was daydreaming about Sasuke smiling as widely as the Sasuke in the photos all over this house did.  
Perhaps he was imagining Sasuke saying in a more excited voice than he’d ever heard Sasuke use before, ‘Naruto, this thing you’ve found is the most amazing thing ever, and I would never have noticed it on my own. You showed all your usual bravery, which is courage and not stupid recklessness like I wrongly called it in the past, in exploring outside by yourself. You’re not a dobe at all, you’re a totally brilliant genius who is my absolute best friend. I completely respect you and acknowledge you as my equal. This thing that only you with your awesomeness could have discovered, means that we can go back to our world, and I’ve decided that once we get back where we belong, I’m going to return to where I belong. Yes, that’s right, I’m returning to Konoha with you, and more than that, spending this time here with you has made me realise how smart you are and what good company you are, so I want to move in with you and be with you every single day and show you how grateful I am that you never gave up on me by…’

There was roaring, whirring, squeaking, flash of metallic, something attacking him.  
There were arms around his waist yanking him out of danger with unbelievable speed.  
A voice that he knew was Sasuke’s but there was an edge of worry to the familiar calm that wasn’t like Sasuke at all, ‘It’s Okay, you’re safe I’m here.’  
Then Sasuke leaping back and attacking the creature that had come at Naruto with his full strength.  
Naruto didn’t feel any injury in his body, just the pain in his stomach that had been there since they arrived. He readied himself to join in the fight, despite his lack of knowledge about their opponent, Naruto heart thumped hard in his chest, not with fear, but with excitement that him and Sasuke would once more be battling together. On the same side. This really was his chance to prove himself.  
In the moment before he moved though, Sakura emerged from the belly of the beast, and instead of being grateful at the rescue, she started yelling at Sasuke, lots of angry words that were barely decipherable, followed by even more unfathomable things about insurance, ruined paintwork, and how much her monthly loan repayments were.

However, Sasuke did seem to understand, he jumped off the body of the monster (which was strangely motionless during Sasuke’s assault) and stood before Sakura with pure fury seething from every pore of his body.  
‘You’re in control of this thing.’ Sasuke scratched his katana across the metallic body. ‘And you used it to threaten Naruto’s life.’

‘No, no.’ Fear was in Sakura’s eyes, she waved her hands half in denial, half in protection in front of her. ‘I was just moving my car to avoid a parking ticket, and Naruto was just there, he walked straight in front of me, straight into the road without looking. I hit the brakes immediately. I’m a good driver. You know I would never hurt Naruto.’

‘I don’t know that at all. The slightest provocation you punch him.’ None of the anger had left Sasuke’s tones.

Naruto edged towards him, when Sasuke was in this mood, every movement had to be cautious, but he was poised to rush forward if the raven haired ninja gave even the smallest indication that his angry words would transform into violent actions.

‘I don’t punch him. Not properly, you know that, Sasuke. It’s just a playful thing, you know that too, don’t you, Naruto, it’s nothing real? I mean, how could I ever hurt Naruto, he’s so tough, and it’s you two that are the martial art experts, I mean, I’m just a girl, like I said, even if I wanted to hurt him, which I don’t, it would be impossible and…’

‘You know how Naruto feels, you know he’s possesses a kind and gentle soul, and you take advantage of his affections and his nature to manipulate him.’

Tears were at the corner of Sakura’s eyes, it physically pained Naruto not to rush to her side and comfort her, but he didn’t want to risk provoking Sasuke with any sudden movement unless it was an actual life and death situation. 

Sakura’s mouth opened but she took a few gasps of air before she finally spoke. ‘I thought we’d already talked about this. Why do this now with everyone looking?’

Naruto glanced at their other friends who were crowding out on to the street, all of them wore concerned expressions, especially Ino. He tried to think of some way to defuse Sasuke’s anger, the only times he saw Sasuke like this a lot of people died. Maybe if he could work out why he was so cross with Sakura? The attack didn’t seem like an attack anymore but a result of Naruto’s ignorance of this world combined with his daydreaming.

Sakura started talking again, her eyes looking pleadingly at Sasuke. ‘I know exactly how many times you’ve rejected me, every single one is a scar on my heart. I like Naruto so much, he’s one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met, a real friend, and I know that every time I tell you I love you I’m betraying that friendship, and relying on the fact that he is so kind and forgiving to know that he’ll never make things awkward between us. I know I should have more control, and I think I have been doing better. But it’s difficult, you are the love of my life and…’

‘I am not the love of your life. You don’t know the first thing about me. It could have been any good looking person you fixated on and made up all your romantic fantasies about, it could have been Naruto just as easily as me. But true love is ugly and terrifying. True love is about seeing into the darkest pits of another person’s soul and still believing in them and fighting even harder for them because you know you are the only one who can help them. It is not imagined scars on your heart, it is willingly facing an opponent who can rip your body to pieces just for the chance to…’ Sasuke’s voice suddenly broke off, the anger had disappeared from him and his cheeks were flushed. In a voice that had somehow lost some of its edge, he commanded, ‘Just don’t do anything under any circumstances that could even remotely hurt Naruto.’ Then turned and swept back into the house.

The group parted for him and looked at each other with wide eyes.  
Ino went straight to Sakura and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. ‘Wow, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but when he started attacking your car, I didn’t know if it was the sexiest or scariest thing I’ve ever seen.’

Sakura smiled through her falling tears. ‘I think equal mixture of both.’ She looked up at Naruto. ‘You get it, don’t you? You do understand?’

On impulse Naruto stepped forward and hugged both the girls. He thought that was a better response than to admit he didn’t understand anything at all, but was just overcome with relief that he hadn’t needed to fight Sasuke in order to protect Sakura. It’d been a situation he had faced more than once in his own world, and there was a dark voice that whispered inside, asking if he’d be able to kill Sasuke to save his friends. So far he had always been able to overpower it by brightly and loudly declaring that he was going to rescue a fully alive and healthy Sasuke, no doubting allowed.

The rest of the group decided to join in and huddled around the central three. As if some tension had been released they all spoke at once, but Naruto deciphered a few of them from the general noise.

Kiba a decibel away from ear splitting, shouted, ‘OMG! I can’t believe that sword is real, I thought that it was another one of your amazing replicas. Please tell me, why in the hell is your boyfriend walking around with a real weapon?’

Rock Lee, as close to possible to Sakura, declared, ‘I know how you feel about him, but you’re wasting the precious beauty and light of your youth trying to become something different for someone who doesn’t want you, when you have so many people around you who appreciate and love you just as you are.’

Shikamaru, looked sideways at Naruto, and spoke in a confidential voice. ‘Naruto, if something is wrong, you’re not alone. You have lots of friends who can and will help you.’

And Gaara who was the quietest of them all, but somehow Naruto heard every word. ‘Sasuke needs you, he probably doesn’t realise how much he needs you, but go to him. Never give up on what you have together; it is such a rare, and precious, thing in this world to find someone who loves you as much as you love them.’

Naruto met Gaara’s eyes and was surprised to see that despite the differences in appearances, (for some reason everyone’s eyes in this world seemed to have pupils for a start, and they didn’t seem to be so keen on marking their faces with random symbols for a second), this Gaara looked at him and made him feel exactly like the one he was familiar with from his own life. He felt a deep understanding between them, the type of emotion he thought could only come from fighting someone to near death and seeing their soul ripped bare before you. But that sort of thing didn’t happen here, so maybe they’d just had a good conversation without the need for one of them to be murdering the other?  
Despite everything, Naruto felt a glow of pride in the Naruto that existed here could be so good at the talking thing that he created deep bonds without any need for the emotional catalyst of violence.  
He gave Gaara a respectful bow, called out a few words to the others about checking on Sasuke and ran inside. He knew automatically where the other ninja was, at one point early on in knowing Sasuke he’d dreamed that he might have cool sensory powers, but he quickly learned that his skills were very specific sensory-Sasuke skills. And then as they got older, Sasuke, along with about a trillion other tricks, seemed to have a way of blocking himself from Naruto. Since they arrived here though, it was the opposite, Sasuke somehow enhanced his presence so Naruto always knew where he was. And the thought struck Naruto, that it worked both ways, Sasuke always knew where Naruto was, and maybe more than that, could sense when Naruto was trying to impress him but instead ended up being an idiot and putting himself in danger.

Naruto walked into Sasuke’s study with a feeling of warmth around his heart. Then he recalled last time he was here. It had only been the previous day, but time moved strangely here and it already seemed a lifetime ago. Sasuke shared the information he’d been gathering, the really heart-breaking, depressing, soul-aching, information he’d been gathering. But against all likelihood it was Sasuke who showed the most emotion, who snuggled against Naruto, who displayed all his vulnerability and fear about Itachi. Naruto overflowed with an emotion so strong and powerful that he didn’t even know if it had a name, if it was something other more normal people than him regularly felt? Maybe it was something you only got when you had spent all your adolescence right into your adulthood, chasing after your best friend who refused to acknowledge he was your best friend and instead seemed to think he was your enemy. And not even your nemesis-locked-in-deadly-duel-always-thinking-about-you type of enemy, but the sort of enemy who just beat you up a bit if you happened to find one of his uglyass underground lairs. And then when your best friend looks like he has decided to make the effort to actually kill you, you end up in a totally different world together, inhabiting the lives of other happy friendly version of yourselves, and your best friend finally realises he is your best friend after all. If there was a name for that emotion that was what he felt.  
Until that was aforementioned best friend suddenly decided that hugging and emotions outside the familiar hate to indifference range were not part of his personality, pulled away and since that breakthrough-moment-that-turned-out-not-to-be-a-breakthrough-moment had gone back to communicating with ‘hnnnn’ and fewer syllables in a whole day than Naruto used in one sentence.

But Naruto was used to this, he could and would deal with it. He wouldn’t fail. Not this time. Whatever it took, however much fighting, however much talking, whatever it was, he would save Sasuke.

‘Did you come in here to stare at the back of my head or do you intend to actually talk to me? Sasuke said, cutting through Naruto’s thoughts.

‘Well, I have always been curious about how your hair always stays perfectly like that, yaknow, when you’re jumping about fighting, or hanging upside down, or even in the water, it never kinda just flops into a mess. Is it a special jutsu like Granny Tsunade’s?’ Naruto strolled casually up to where Sasuke was sitting, keeping the tone of his voice light. ‘Did you mean what you said outside, to Sakura, yaknow?’

A slight blush appeared on Sasuke’s cheeks and disappeared as quickly. ‘She tried to kill you.’

‘You know she didn’t.’

‘I’m not certain of that at all.’

‘I am. Because otherwise she’d be dead. Or I’d be dead trying to defend her from you attacking her because she attacked me.’

Sasuke looked up at Naruto for the first time since the blonde had entered the room. ‘You’re right for once, dobe. She’s still alive because I know the whole thing came from you being an ignorant idiot. I keep telling you to be careful, and you agree, and then you go outside on your own. Why?’

Naruto felt the heat in his own face, now didn’t seem the appropriate time to confess to his daydreams of impressing Sasuke. Quickly he swapped the conversation back to his question. ‘You didn’t answer, did you mean that thing you said about how she could have fallen in love with any good looking guy, and then you said it could have been me, yaknow, indicating that you think I’m good looking?’

Sasuke shook his head. ‘Everything that happened and that’s the thing you latch onto?’ He sighed and waved his hand up and down taking in all of Naruto’s body. ‘It is possible for me from a subjective perspective to see how some people might find what you have to offer attractive.’

Naruto put his hands behind his head and gave a soft whistle. ‘Yaknow the language I understand better than all others in any world is Sasuke, and in Sasuke-speak you’ve just told me that I’m the hottest thing you’ve ever been blessed to lay eyes on.’ 

Sasuke smirked and turned back to the piece of paper he was writing on.  
Naruto’s arms dropped to his side, he suddenly felt unsure what to do with his hands, or in fact his whole body. He tried out various poses and ended up leaning close to Sasuke over the desk. It wasn’t where he meant to end up, but once he was there, with the brunette so close strands of his hair were brushing against Naruto’s cheeks, he somehow found that he didn’t want to move. Why hadn’t Sasuke argued with what he’d said? Sasuke could argue with him about anything and everything, why had he smiled at that, why was he still smiling?

‘So…ummm…we know what a car is now, kinda,’ Naruto said. Sasuke complained he talked too much, but right now the words whizzing around his brain were not ones he wanted to say out loud. ‘They kept mentioning the word and I wasn’t sure what it was. I was visualising some sort of horse, or a big ostrich or something. Do you remember the fun we had with that ostrich those times, all those missions we had to do? Not as much fun as when we had to pretend to be cats and you put on those cute ears and…’ Why was that image coming into his head? For once he didn’t feel in the mood to tease Sasuke about it.

‘We know that you shouldn’t step in front of cars,’ Sasuke said. ‘And we know that I am cute whether I am dressed as a cat or not.’

Naruto had been trying not to look at Sasuke, but now he couldn’t help gazing at him. Sasuke was still smiling and he never referred to himself as cute. Had hitting that car and sounding off at Sakura put him in a happy mood? Or was it something else?  
Naruto decided it was something else. He lurched at Sasuke and for once had the advantage of him wrestling him to the floor and pinning him down. ‘Whoever you are, the only thing you need to know is that Sasuke is my best friend and I’ll do anything to protect him. This is your one warning, return him immediately or I’ll…’  
‘Dobe, it’s me. Maybe a few years ago you might have been able to make a credible threat against me, but right now we both know you’ve got no tricks that have any effect on me,’ Sasuke interrupted. Then something changed in his eyes and his voice lowered a bit, but his smile widened. ‘Or perhaps you do have some things you haven’t shown me yet.’

‘How do I know it’s you? You’re too smiley and…too smiley.’

‘You know.’ Sasuke sprung to his feet somehow carrying Naruto with him in a move Naruto wasn’t familiar with. Naruto awkwardly pulled away from the other ninja, his whole body was shooting so many emotions and messages off that he really hoped that Sasuke wasn’t trying some sort of new fighting technique as Naruto had no idea how to respond.

‘What’s going on with you?’ Naruto demanded. ‘You’re huggy, then you’re cold, then you’re shouty, then you’re smiley? I can’t keep up with you.’

‘You’re the only one that can, Naruto.’ The brunette’s smile disappeared and he stared down at the desk and the notes he’d been making.

Naruto felt the beat of his own heart thumping, but for a moment it was as if all he could hear was the beating of Sasuke’s heart pounding in his ears as if he was pressed against Sasuke’s chest.  
Naruto stepped closer to the other man, but then was unsure what to do. He glanced down at Sasuke’s notes, it was a list of things to do. He read them out just for something to say in the strange silence that was wrapping around them both. ‘One, test limits of my powers in this world. Two, test limits of Naruto’s powers in this world. Three, have that conversation with Naruto, it’s obvious what the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke is in this world, but can never be certain what that idiot is actually aware of. Four, find ways to investigate if there is slippage between the personalities of the Naruto and Sasuke here and us. Five, ask Naruto to phone Itachi.’

‘Hnnnn, you do speak Sasuke then, how could you break my code so quickly, even Orochimaru has never been able to discover it.’

Naruto looked again at the piece of paper. ‘I didn’t realise it was in code, I dunno, I just see you in every stroke of the ink and I know what it says.’ He glanced up at Sasuke frowning. ‘Although maybe if it is in code I got it wrong and you didn’t call me an idiot.’

Sasuke shrugged with a small smirk.

Naruto sighed, he knew that was the least important thing that Sasuke had written. ‘Do you know how to phone Itachi? I understand why you want me to do it, it might be easier to speak to him before you see him though?’

Sasuke shook his head. ‘No, if I’m to have a conversation with my brother, with someone who might be some sort of distorted mirror to my real brother, I don’t want to do it over a foreign device, it needs to be face to face. That’s the only way.’

When Sasuke handed Naruto his phone and showed him what to press, Naruto touched Sasuke’s fingers for a longer time than necessary. Both of them seemed reluctant to break physical contact, until finally Naruto did as Sasuke had told him and pressed on the face that looked too similar to the man Sasuke had murdered years ago. They gazed into each other’s eyes as the tinny sound of ringing somehow filled the whole room.  
‘There’s no answer,’ Sasuke said. ‘This is ridiculous. It is a trap. I need to, we both need to, focus on how to get home, not let ourselves get distracted by...’  
Then the voice of a long dead man sounded through the speaker, filled with life and cheer. ‘Ok, little-brother-to-be, I know you wouldn’t be calling at this time unless it was important, so what has little-brother-that-is done now? And I’m warning you, this time I really mean it, it better not be anything to do with him banning you from eating ramen or refusing to wear whatever new costume you’ve bought him.’

Sasuke’s eyes widened and Naruto saw his young friend. Not the one who built wall after wall around himself, but the one who had loved his brother so much that when Itachi betrayed him, he felt the only emotion left inside him was hate. Naruto opened up his free arm and Sasuke fell into the embrace. With his other arm, Naruto raised the phone to his ear and hoped as much as he’d ever hoped for anything in his life that he would have some of the gift of talking he was supposed to, and would be able to make everything right for the most precious person he held tightly against his chest.


	9. Chapter 9

Sasuke sat on a bench underneath a trellis of yellow roses alone in the garden. In his hands he held a photo of the Sasuke, Naruto and Itachi from this world sitting on the same bench at a time before the roses had bloomed. Itachi was positioned in the middle, his arms around the two others who were both leaning into him, Naruto stared at the camera with his customary wide grin that was all white teeth and creased up eyes. Disconcertingly Sasuke had exactly the same expression on his face except he was gazing up at his brother.

When Sasuke had first found this photo amongst a file that was a mixture of documents about the house and more mementos from Naruto, his first instinct had been to tear it up. When he resisted that, reminding himself that he’d decided to respect the order and possessions of this world’s Sasuke, his next instinct had been to keep it close to him at all times. Although he was aware that by stealing it from the place in the folder he had damaged it almost as much as if he had torn it. He blamed it on these clothes Naruto found for him to wear. Naruto had said, ‘As we’re trying to blend in…we should try and blend in.’ For himself Naruto discovered baggy clothes in colours so bright that they seemed to be designed to dazzle anyone who saw him so they wouldn’t notice how shapeless and hideous his garments were. For Sasuke, Naruto delivered a tight pair of something black called jeans, matched with an equally tight t-shirt. Too late Sasuke learned that the pockets in these clothes did not preserve something, but creased the photo into a mess of fine lines.

Sasuke knew what he would do if someone ruined any of his possessions. Not that he had any family photos. Or any photos at all. There had been one once he remembered having a sentimental attachment to; Kakashi and Sakura smiling, and Naruto and him looking as if they belonged in a totally different picture. But that was a long time ago. Wasn’t it? It was merely a random blip in the universe, one he would soon correct, that had put Naruto back in his life.  
Sasuke sighed. He was not so unaware to not acknowledge that however far he travelled from Konoha, Naruto had always been in his life. Things were definitely different in this world, but it was his Naruto, the boy he’d known and harassed for so many years, who phoned Itachi and somehow managed to convince him to cancel all his plans and come and visit them. It was his Naruto, the one stubborn idiot who refused to stop chasing after him, who witnessed him at his most vulnerable and instinctively knew when to hold him and knew when to be quiet and knew when to talk.

Sasuke’s eyes focused again on the photo, he gazed at the version of him and he felt something like a distant echo of his happiness. Here was a man who appeared to share many of Sasuke’s traits, but the choices he’d made had led him to becoming a student living with the person he loved and secure in the affections of an older brother who would do anything for him. What must it feel like to sit in this beautiful garden in the company of the two people who you adore most in the world?  
He moved his hand almost unconsciously over the people in the photo and memories flashed through his mind of the number of times his fist had smashed into Naruto’s body. He looked at fingers that had dug into raw flesh and woven signs with the intent to not just kill, but to cause mind-breaking pain. In the moments before Naruto and him had woken up here, Sasuke had decided to end the blonde for good. The mixture of the damage he’d already done and the jutsus he laid down, would have meant that the final blow would have blasted Naruto’s whole being into invisible atoms. All of his tantrums, his smiles, his long never-ending speeches pledging to bring Sasuke home, his strange dedication to ramen, orange, and all the idiots he called friends, all of that would be gone. There wouldn’t be a single soul left who believed that Sasuke was ‘saveable’.   
Gazing down at the picture, Sasuke forgot that he was looking at people he’d never met, it felt like his own brother. And his own stupidly-grinning, brightly-shining, Naruto. And there was only one thought in his mind.  
How could I live without ever hearing his voice again?

‘May I have a word please, Sasuke?’

Sasuke glanced up, his eyes momentarily wide before he instantly regained his composure. He carefully placed the photo back in his pocket before giving his attention to the person who’d approached him.  
‘Neji,’ he said in a voice that sounded more like a dismissal than a welcome.

Neji neither sat down beside Sasuke or moved away, but stood calmly waiting for something else from Sasuke. 

‘What do you want?’ Sasuke finally said. ‘I thought the party had at last ended and everyone was busy getting away from me as fast as possible. Shouldn’t you be enduring some sort of group hug and Rock Lee crying about the end of spring time?’

Although there was nothing friendly in Sasuke’s tones, Neji took his words as a signal that they could have a conversation. He gave a low bow and spoke in a humble voice. ‘Before we leave, I need to thank you.’ He bowed again. ‘I know it is the nature of our friendship that we both prefer that things remain unsaid, which is the reason for the delay in speaking of my gratitude, but seeing these few days how you’ve dealt with Sakura and hearing about…Sai, it seems important that I’m certain you know how grateful I am about how you handled things with Hinata.’

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. Neji was very near the bottom of people and things he was thinking about, he’d done nothing of particular note, and the only time he’d come to the forefront was when Naruto blabbered on about how odd their friends’ eyes were here and whether that was an important clue. And as for Hinata, she was such an invisible person that even if she had been presence at this gathering Sasuke still probably wouldn’t have noticed her.  
Which would be a mistake, akin to all the other mistakes he’s made in this world. At home, the rumours were that Hinata and Naruto were dating. Although when he investigated, and thinking of it now he did perhaps carry out a more thorough investigation than the scant information required, all he discovered was unrequited infatuation on Hinata’s side, and the usual blind ignorance on Naruto’s. But there could be relevance in Hinata’s absence here.

While Sasuke thought, Neiji had continued talking. Impatient with himself, Sasuke focused in on the data Neji was giving him here and now, instead of regretting things missed.

‘You showed a grace that made me proud to be your oldest friend,’ Neji finished.

‘Naruto’s my oldest friend,’ Sasuke snapped. Then clenched his teeth. Was spending time with the dobe infecting him so badly that he was starting to automatically parrot what the idiot believed? Worse than that his body pulsed with irrational anger at Neji claiming friendship with him, as if that was Naruto’s sole domain. 

Neji frowned visibly puzzled. His voice became hesitant and faltered from its usual confident tones. ‘I know we don’t say it…but I thought there’s always been…our family situations…the similarities. You were the one…you and Naruto were the people who gave me the strength to follow your example and choose a life for myself outside the family…business.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘There were moments between us before you gave yourself to Naruto, moments that I thought meant something…to both of us.’

Sasuke forced what he intended to be reassuring smile, but caused Neji to take a step backwards.

‘I didn’t mean anything by referring to…those times. I know it was a long time ago,’ Neji quickly said. ‘All I wanted to do was thank you for how delicately you handled the situation with Hinata and I’ve obviously failed to do the same by approaching you now.’

Sasuke reverted to his standard expression. In finding his way home he’d determined to leave the life of this world’s Sasuke has undisturbed as possible, but there was so much information to absorb, and there was Naruto, and there was him flailing about in emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge. Somehow Naruto seemed to be fitting into this world as if he really was born here. But perhaps he was as confused as Sasuke was, yet when he made obvious mistakes he laughed and tried again. And when he got small something right he acted as if he’d conquered the whole world.

‘Sasuke, I’m sorry. I’ll go now,’ Neji said softly. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your thinking time. I hope you know I always mean to respect your need for space, and sorry again if I trespassed where I wasn’t wanted.’

Something flashed into Sasuke’s brain, in contrast to all the mess that had been misleading him, this was logical and made sense. The Sasuke here felt pity and responsibility for the luminescent loud chaos that was Naruto, but his real love was the one who matched his personality much more closely. The one who always respected his need for space, not the one who constantly demanded attention and squashed annoying people into their house for a party that lasted days.  
With a quickness that was beyond Neji’s perception, Sasuke jumped to his feet and took the long haired man in his arms. He pressed his lips against Neji’s, starting with gentle caresses but rapidly moving to hungry demanding kisses. His tongue slid into Neji’s mouth tasting green jasmine tea as he explored every inch of the other man. Neji’s body trembled against him and he could feel the beat of his heart pounding through both sets of clothes; it was more the reaction Sasuke would expect when they were naked, not the response to a basic kiss.

Defying the logic that he was trying to cling to, Sasuke’s mind became dominated with a picture of how Naruto would behave if he kissed the blonde. Unconsciously he closed his eyes tighter and drew Neiji in closer, one hand travelling down to the small of his back, his little finger playing across the line of Neji’s waistband.

Then instead of the imaginary Naruto he felt the presence of the real Naruto. Close. He flicked his eyes open and pushed Neiji away from him. Neji stumbled backwards, his legs seemed to have no strength in them, but Sasuke barely noticed him. All his attention was on the blonde who was grinning sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.   
‘Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ Naruto said. ‘The others are just ready to go, yaknow, Neji, and were wondering where you were.’

Neji glanced between the other two men his eyes disbelieving. ‘Are you two in an open relationship? When did that happen? I don’ t know if I want…’

‘Neji, go,’ Sasuke commanded in a tone of voice that a ninja would have obeyed let alone an ordinary human of this world.

As he disappeared, Naruto turned to follow, but in the same voice, Sasuke demanded, ‘Naruto, come here.’

Naruto paused before walking over to stand in front of Sasuke. ‘Everyone’s going, I want to say goodbye. That’s what nice people do. Hanging with evil psychopaths might help you learn the killer jutsus, but it definitely hasn’t done anything for your basic manners, teme.’

‘Why didn’t you react when you saw me kissing Neji?’

Naruto’s eyes flicked to both sides as if he was searching for someone to explain something to him. ‘What are you talking about? Was there some plan I missed?’

‘You’re supposed to be my lover, you should react when you see me kissing someone else.’

Naruto folded his arms across his chest. ‘Well, either tell me beforehand what you want me to do, or don’t go about kissing other people.’

Sasuke clenched his hands into fists. Anger raced red raw through his body. Followed by a tumult of rage at how little control he had over his emotions in this world.

‘Why did you kiss, Neji? You might as well reveal your genius plan so I can be better prepared for next time.’ Naruto chewed on his bottom lip and then asked in an unusually quiet voice. ‘Is it something you discovered from your internet-thing? Is Sasuke really in love with Neji? Is he going to break up with me? I mean the Naruto from this world.’

Sasuke shook his head. Strangely considering how annoying the blonde was, there had been moments since they arrived that Naruto’s voice had seemed to contain more power than the strongest jutsu Sasuke had ever created. He felt his anger dissipate and he was left with a sense of himself as a person totally different from the man he thought he was. He just had no idea if this was a good thing or not.  
‘Neji hinted at some sort of past relationship and I had a moment of certainty where I believed that Neji and Sasuke were definitely lovers. It does make more sense than a long term relationship with you, there’s really no basis for compatibility at all between our personalities. I was struck with the idea that becoming engaged to you, recently moving into this house together, had crystallised Sasuke into seeing that you were not someone he could realistically spend the rest of his life with.’

Naruto swallowed hard and stared into Sasuke’s eyes.

‘But,’ Sasuke continued, ‘It must be obvious even to you, that Sasuke is besotted with you.’

‘Besotted?’

‘Smitten. Completely in love. It was the opposite of logic to think that he was at all attracted to Neji. This whole house, his study, all his life is centred around you. Every single romantic feeling in his whole being is focused on you. There’s never been anyone else I’ve truly wanted, only you.’ Sasuke licked his lips, his mouth suddenly felt dry.

Naruto’s cheeks were flushed, he lowered his glance. ‘You mean the Sasuke and the Naruto here, you said ‘I’ by mistake.’ There was a long silence before Naruto looked up with his usual grin. ‘I think I’ve still got time to rush and say goodbye, they’re probably waiting for me. You should come too, just don’t start kissing anyone else, you’re the one who keeps lecturing me about being careful and not messing things up in this world. For the record, I’m pretty sure that making out with someone who doesn’t expect you to be making out with them is worse than setting the microwave-thing on fire.’ Naruto turned to run off.

Sasuke grabbed his wrist. ‘Wait.’ Another moment’s silence. ‘You set the microwave on fire?’ He dropped his hold on Naruto. ‘When did this happen? You should have told me at once, that sounds dangerous.’

Naruto flashed his perfect white teeth. ‘It’s fine. It seems even though I eat a lot of ramen I haven’t learned to cook it properly and all our friends are apparently experts at dealing with me setting the timer wrong, or leaving things on at high temperatures and then forgetting about them.’ Naruto stood still for a few seconds longer before jogging off, but he turned back to Sasuke before he disappeared through the house. ‘I still don’t know how you wanted me to act when I saw you kissing Neji, or why you got so angry, but if it’s a help for your research, a clue, or something, I don’t know, how I might be linked to the Naruto of this world or whatever, yaknow, I thought I did pretty well covering up how I felt. It was like in that single moment you’d hit me with the full force of every single punch and kick you’ve ever given me over my whole life. But worse. It felt like you’d blown a hole through my gut and the most horrible thing was that I was still alive and would have to live with the pain forever never dying. All I wanted to do was fall to the ground and weep. But I pretended it didn’t matter because I thought that is what you’d want. I guess I don’t know you as well as I think, hey?’ Naruto vanished inside without giving Sasuke any time to make a reply.

Sasuke put his fingers over his lips, not thinking about the kiss he had had, but the one he’d imagined. He sat back down on the bench, took the photo out of his pocket and gazed once more at how happy the Sasuke in the picture was.


	10. Chapter 10

It seemed to be that Naruto just finished hugging everyone and had said goodbyes then they got out of the cars and started hugging from the beginning again. Naruto still felt slightly wary of the metallic things and looked in amazement how everyone piled in and out of them without any fear at all. He kept reminding himself that if his friends here saw just a simple thing from his world like walking on water they’d think he was some sort of god or something!

Only Neji stayed aloof, sitting upright in his seat, he made even Gaara look like a toddler at a birthday party suffering from severe sugar overdose.  
Swallowing down his nerves Naruto leaned into, what seemed to him, one of the many mouths of the car-thing, and reached over to Neji. He hoped this wasn’t a trap, that the car doors wouldn’t slam shut and he’d be roared away from Sasuke forever. Despite everything that had happened between them and everything that was happening now though, Naruto still believed that it was impossible to be separated from Sasuke for very long, the other ninja would chase after him and rescue him, even it was just to tell him what a dobe he was for getting captured by a car.

The angle was a little awkward for a hug but Naruto did his best. Neji’s body remained stiff, but somehow Naruto could read his emotions as easily as a Hyuga could read chakra. It was too familiar what Sasuke did to people; the unsteady beat of Neji’s heart, the tremble in his hands, the beads of sweat on his forehead. Sasuke could do that to someone in a microsecond just by looking at them as he walked by. And that kiss he gave Neji was so much more than a passing glance. Sasuke knew the power he had over people. He used it to gather the select few around him that he considered valuable, although Naruto had sadly witnessed too many times how even the ones he chose as his comrades were expandable. Naruto knew that Sasuke gave no more thought to crushing someone emotionally than he did to crushing them physically. In fact it was less thought, Sasuke put a lot of effort and finesse into his fighting, all the emotional casualties were just a by-product he barely noticed. Neji would be haunted by the passion of that kiss for the rest of his life, Sasuke would consider it meaningless and never think about it again.

‘It’s Okay, Neji, I, better than anyone, know what it’s like with him. I don’t blame you at all. I the opposite of blame you, yaknow?’ Naruto thought he whispered, but the faces of his friends suddenly going silent and peering at him, told him differently. Even Kiba who had been chatting to Shikamaru nowhere near the car suddenly came over and squashed up to look in.

‘Maybe we could discuss this another time, Naruto.’ Neji’s voice was unsure and embarrassed, but he gave Naruto a nod of gratitude.

‘Yeah, of course. I mean, I just wanted you to know that I’m good with you and I hope you’re good with me, because I haven’t had a chance to tell you with all the madness of the weekend, but that’s not an excuse because I should have made time, you’ve gotta know that I’m so happy to see you here all alive and healthy and alive and everything. Really really happy. Happier than a room without a roof.’ Naruto gave a large grin, proud of himself for remembering the phrase from that song. ‘Promise me that you’ll keep yourself safe. Really really safe. For Hinata, if not me. She needs you more than she’s ever told you.’

Neji’s face creased in confusion.

Naruto’s pride immediately vanished, he’d got too emotional missing Neji from his world and thinking of the Hinata he knew, he hadn’t even met her here. He suddenly wondered why he hadn’t met her, and more than that why he hadn’t noticed before now.  
‘Is Hinata all right here? Your cousin, Hinata, she’s okay, right? Say hi to her, say I’d like to see her.’

For answer Neji spontaneously hugged Naruto as if the life had returned to his body. He mumbled in Naruto’s ear. ‘Thank you for your kindness, I don’t deserve it. And your kindness to Hinata. We’ll talk soon, I promise. I just need to think.’

Naruto was relieved to pull himself out of the car. The pain in his stomach warned him that he might have said the wrong things. Especially regarding Hinata. But he smiled widely and told himself his aim had been to cheer Neji up and Neji looked slightly more human so it was a success. Plus the car-thing hadn’t swallowed him alive or attacked him, so another bonus. Although there was a tiny rebel voice deep inside him that protested it liked the daydream of Sasuke having to come and rescue him. Naruto mentally kicked it repeatedly but it possessed his determination and refused to shut up. 

He continued to say goodbye to his friends, smiling stubbornly through all their curious looks. Kiba got him in a strangle hold and wouldn’t let go until Naruto promised to meet him soon and tell him EVERYTHING! But Gaara and Shikamaru were strangely the most reluctant to leave him, both pulled him to the side and gave him quiet lectures that in truth Naruto couldn’t quite follow. Shikamaru seemed to be warning him about being too kind, and Gaara was even more confusing comparing love to a grain of sand falling through your hand and the difficulty of holding onto it. He decided the appropriate response was hugs and promises to not leave it so long until they met up again.

Naruto finally got everyone to leave and waved them off, but with the cars roaring off, and even Kiba’s voice and Reddy’s smell moving far out of the range of his senses, Naruto felt lonely. Empty.  
It was at times like this he missed Kurama.  
At the beginning of their fights, Sasuke’s ability to shut the nine-tails power down, had shocked and scared Naruto. But both him and Kurama, well mostly Kurama in honesty, had over time been able to understand and deconstruct the sharingen’s power, but then Sasuke had devised something entirely new that no one could work out. Kurama was still inside him, but bound and muffled in a way that neither of them could break through. After one battle it’d taken over a month before Kurama emerged again, all the fox could tell him was that it was like he was in a deep sleep where no dream could ever reach him.

Naruto sighed. Kurama was missing, but there was one presence inside him that he felt profoundly linked to. Sasuke.  
The other ninja was still in the garden, it was no surprise that he hadn’t bothered to come and see their friends off, he’d dismissed them as being of little use in solving the ‘puzzle’ they were trapped in, always preferring to be alone in the study reading through all the files and exploring the internet-thing.  
But then Sasuke had decided to kiss Neji.  
The image flashed vividly into Naruto’s mind, with no one left he needed to appear strong for, Naruto’s knees buckled under him and he sunk to the floor his hand clasped over his stomach.

He let the tears fall and the emotions rip through him. It didn’t ease the pain at all, but in that moment it was what he needed to do.

After a while he wiped his eyes and smiled wistfully. He stood up, using the wall to balance, his body feeling much older than it was, he swore he could actually hear his bones creak. 

‘Come on, don’t be the dobe he thinks you are,’ Naruto told himself. 

He should be angry with Sasuke for messing with the people here, especially considering that it was the raven who kept saying they were nothing to do with the jutsu that had thrown them here.   
He shouldn’t be crying collapsed on the ground because Sasuke kissed someone who wasn’t him. They weren’t the couple who lived and loved in this house. They were two ninjas who turned mountains into dust when they battled and forests into ash when they fought.  
Although right now, they were two ninjas stuck in a world where ninjas weren’t supposed to exist. And they were waiting for the arrival of an Itachi who wasn’t really Sasuke’s big brother (just like Sasuke wasn’t really Naruto’s fiancé) but it still felt like the most important thing that had happened since they turned up here.  
Whatever was going on with Sasuke and kissing random people, or maybe it wasn’t random, maybe Sasuke, his Sasuke, was really attracted to Neji, (Naruto’s shoulders slumped), it didn’t matter. Naruto would do everything in his power to make Itachi’s visit a success and prove to Sasuke that he was someone he could trust with the key things (Naruto stood up straight and started whistling).

Faced with the kitchen a little bit of his confidence faded again. His initial thoughts were that the Naruto from this world was a bit of a scuzzbag until he realised that all the mess surrounding him here, and as he considered it, the other rooms, originated from him over only the past few days. He knew it was him as well, because his friends had been really careful about tidying up, all of them with horror tales of Sasuke’s reactions when this cup broke, or that surface got scratched. Whereas he had delighted in the chaos of the party and laughed at his friends worrying about Sasuke shouting. Once he’d actually said, ‘Wait until he throws you into a rockface for saying you’ve got better chakra control than him, then you won’t care about him being tetchy about a bit of mess.’ No one else had got it of course, but it made Naruto chuckle. But then the whole idea of living in a world where Sasuke wasn’t killing him made him beam. 

He spent some time moving things around the kitchen and hoped that the lingering smell of burning microwave was only so bad because of his super senses. Tidying had never been really at the top of his skill set, or anywhere in the same continent as his skill set. When your main occupation involved things like spending months learning enough focus to balance on a tiny pointy stick while some oversized toads shouted at you and occasionally fed you grubs, and your main preoccupation involved spending months chasing after even the slightest rumour about the whereabouts of the homicidal maniac who was your best friend, there wasn’t much time left to master the intricacies of cleaning, such as actually putting things in a bin rather than throwing them in the general direction of your growing pile of rubbish. But Naruto worked as hard as if he was memorising a new jutsu, moving things around and then moving them around again. Spraying cleaner everywhere. Checking that the milk in the fridge hadn’t gone solid. Having a tiny snack break. Then more moving and spraying.

‘What are you doing?’ The voice was more interrogatory than overflowing with surprise and pleasure.

Naruto turned and forced himself to smile at Sasuke standing in the doorway. ‘Right now I am watering these herbs that Sasuke-here grows on the windowsill; generally I am cleaning ready for when Itachi arrives.’

‘You’re drowning those plants, can’t you do even the simplest tasks without help.’ With his natural speed Sasuke was at Naruto’s side, his hand on top of Naruto’s turning the tap off. They both held the touch and then pulled away awkwardly at the same moment.

Naruto swallowed a couple of times before he spoke. ‘Sasuke, there are lots of things I can’t do. Like, I’ll say this now, even though it might seem a bit out of the blue, but I’ve been wanting to ask you since we got here, I can’t work out how you take Kurama away from me. So can you give him back as I don’t know how to do it on my own.’  
Sasuke’s head jolted sharply and stared at Naruto with an unreadable expression.

‘I know for you it’s probably something simple, if I’m being honest, I can’t even pretend to be competing with you at the moment in terms of either power or knowledge, but I keep trying, I won’t give up and let you leave me behind, yaknow? But maybe for now you could just give me a shortcut on this one and tell me what to do. Or you just do it without telling me whatever, if it’s like a big secret thing for you.’

‘Why do you want the demon back?’ Sasuke asked. ‘I remember a time when you would have been endlessly grateful for what I can do for you, shutting the fox away from you.’

‘Yaknow it hasn’t been that way for a long time. We’re friends now, it’s not even a ninja thing, we work together, sure, and he gives me a lot of power and he might even help us working out what’s going on here, because yaknow he’s old and knows stuff, but it’s more than that. I was alone for so long and now I know I’m never alone, I carry someone who cares for me everywhere. That’s special to me. I’m lonely without him.’

Sasuke folded his arms across his chest. ‘Hnnn.’

Naruto shook his head wildly. ‘Nooo, don’t look like that, I’m obviously not lonely with you here, although you do like spending lots of time on your own, whereas I’ve spent enough time on my own, and like company, and it’s been good because everyone’s been here but now there gone it feels kinda empty. I know you’ve done something or changed something so we can feel where each other is all the time. And I appreciate that. But I’m used to having someone to talk to. Who like talks back a bit. Mostly he’s snarky and telling me my plans are rubbish, so the two of you would get on if you ever yaknow spoke to him rather than just doing your disappearing thing to him.’

‘Stop blabbering. Why would you think I’d be upset about you saying you’re feeling lonely now your loud friends have left and that you prefer to talk to a beast in your head than to me out here?’ Sasuke flushed, the words obviously hadn’t come out in quite the way he imagined them. Then his mask came down again. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you stink. It smells like you’ve rolled in dirt, bathed in cleaning fluid, and then set yourself on fire.’

‘I’ve been cleaning really hard, teme! And it’s not a proper fiery smell, it’s just a bit of smoke lingering from the microwave which I was trying to…’

‘Go and have a shower, my senses can’t stand to be this close to you at the moment.’

‘Fine.’ Naruto stormed out of the room. As comebacks go, ‘fine’, wasn’t really up there with his best, but it turned out when you were determined to stay on friendly terms and not get into a fight with someone, a lot of the more exciting vocabulary got cut off.  
How did Sasuke do that? Never apologise for anything and then flip it all around as if Naruto was the one doing something wrong. Even though he’d never run away from his best friend to become some sort of dark avenger. Or made up jutsu that were way worse than any of the previously forbidden ones. Or kissed someone when he was in a strange world and supposed to be pretending to be Sasuke’s boyfriend.

Naruto took his frustrations out on his innocent clothes, tearing them off and throwing them across the bathroom floor, but by the time he got in the shower his positivity was restored. The brightly coloured bottles cheered his mood, how could anyone feel worried about anything when they were rubbing something called ‘Orange Org…’ the end of the label had peeled away, but it was a luminous happy colour and promised an opulent start to the day, which Naruto transferred to mean: an opulent middle of the day when your cleaning has failed to impress your pretend fiancé in preparation for his pretend brother’s visit as much as you hoped it would, perhaps maybe possibly because your cleaning wasn’t as successful in reality as it was in your mind.

Naruto sung away to himself as he lathered up his body and hair. His counterpart in this world had excellent taste in music and he repeatedly warbled through the lines from the doorbell tune. Some soap got in his eyes and he reached out of the shower to grab a towel. He immediately found one, and was clearing his face of bubbles before it clicked that he hadn’t grabbed the towel, it had been handed to him. His eyes shot open to see Sasuke standing naked in front of him. ‘Waaaarghhh!’

Sasuke shook his head an expression between pity and disdain on his face. ‘How am I able to surprise you with my presence when, as you yourself mentioned downstairs, I’ve allowed you to always be aware of where I am?’

‘I was thinking of…why are you…where are your clothes?’

Sasuke pointed to a neatly folded pile on the hamper in the corner. ‘I decided I should have a shower too.’

‘Why this one? This house is massive. It’s full of showers. Showers that I’m not in.’  
‘I listened to you saying you’re lonely and have decided to make an effort to spend more time with you.’

‘Clothed time, Sasuke. Not surprise naked time. Clothed normal guy time doing normal guy friends things.’

Sasuke shrugged. ‘We frequently went to the baths together in this magical friendship time you cling so desperately to, I thought this would be the same and you’d enjoy it.’

‘Not the same.’

‘If you have something to be shy about then of course I’ll go somewhere else.’ Sasuke turned to pick up his clothes.

Beyond his conscious control, Naruto’s eyes seemed to be magnetised into staring at Sasuke’s bare behind, and once he started looking he somehow couldn’t look away. ‘No! No, I have nothing, nothing at all that I’m embarrassed about. Nothing. If you want to shower together we can shower together.’ Naruto put his hand over his mouth just to stop the words streaming out. He’d been in control, Sasuke had been about to leave, how and why had he managed to say the exact opposite of what he meant to say?

‘Hnnn.’ Sasuke turned and there was a smile on his face that Naruto hadn’t seen since they were kids. It was the way Sasuke had looked when it was only the two of them together, it took a while, but sometimes that expression appeared, on anyone else’s face it would barely be noticeable, but on Sasuke it shone brightly. It couldn’t be called happiness, but it’d always made Naruto’s heart ache, he knew the feeling so well hidden deep inside himself, it was the smile of someone who desperately wanted to be happy but no longer believed it was possible.

‘Why are you staring at me like that, dobe?’ Sasuke raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you changed your mind, you want me to leave after all?’

‘No. Not that.’ Naruto pushed his body back against the tiled wall to give Sasuke room. ‘I was just remembering some of the fun we used to have together.’

‘Fun? Do you enjoying fighting so much, because that is all we did.’ Sasuke walked into the shower and immediately switched the temperature to the lowest setting. Naruto screamed a high pitched squeal. Sasuke gave a small laugh, but it was genuine rather than mocking. ‘Cold focuses the mind better. Consider that as today’s lesson on how to be a better ninja. Tomorrow if you’re really good I’ll teach you how to throw a shuriken.’

Naruto laughed. ‘You remember? That was just what I was thinking about right now. The look you had on your face it reminded me of the times when you actually used to relax, and we weren’t competing anymore, we were just mucking about, yaknow? Pretending to teach each other jutsus, and I’d be all stupid and you let me teach you how to do my sexyjutsu even though you always moaned that it was…’  
‘I never let you teach me that thing, it’s,’ Sasuke interrupted.  
Then together they said, ‘idiotic, repulsive and the true reflection of the mind of an usuratonkachi.’  
Their eyes met as the cold water streamed over them and they both smiled.  
‘You did. I bet you can still do it too. You can do anything you want to, can’t you?’ Naruto said, his voice containing an unusual touch of shyness.

‘Almost anything,’ Sasuke replied slowly. ‘There are some things that still elude me.’

Naruto’s eyes looked sideways, for some reason he couldn’t meet Sasuke’s gaze right now. Despite Sasuke turning the water temperature to what felt like a snow blizzard below freezing, the shower screen had got steamed up. It felt like there was nothing beyond this cubicle, not this strange world, not their familiar world. All there was, was Naruto and Sasuke standing naked together in this tiny eternal space.

He forced his voice to sound normal and just about succeeded. ‘So, yaknow, be honest, have you ever been alone in one of your cave hideouts, and by the way, is that one of your secret jutsus: making mysterious hideouts appear everywhere, because you have so many of the dam things and I swear they turn up in places I’ve already thoroughly searched? But anyway, keeping to the point, at some point over the years you’ve thought of me and done my sexyjutsu and been glad I taught you, right?’ 

Sasuke smirked. ‘Is that what you imagine, dobe? That when I am on my own in bed at night I think about you and immediately want to turn myself into a woman?’

‘Not the way you say it…I meant…I mean, that you…and I don’t imagine you as a woman…or a man…no imagining, just normal thoughts of bringing you back safely to home and Saskura and all your other friends who love and miss you… you made it sound…but what I was saying, as you know, was that did you… do you… when you get a moment spare between torturing people and dinner time like for example, see, I didn’t mention anything about bed or night, did I? Do you ever…’

Sasuke put a single finger to Naruto’s lips. ‘Yes. There have been occasions when I’ve thought about you. How bright and beautiful you are. How cute you look when you’re blushing and stammering rather than giving one of your endless speeches about how you’re my friend, or brother, or saviour. How you made me want to laugh when I never thought I’d laugh again.’ He dropped his hand down, letting his finger run over Naruto’s chin and neck to the firm muscular curve of his chest. ‘But they have been very rare, and I immediately suppress them, because that is not the person I’ve chosen to be.’ His hand returned to his side. ‘And to be clear, I’ve never done any of your ridiculous jutsus and will forever deny that I was ever young and stupid enough to let you teach me any of them.’ 

Naruto swallowed hard. ‘I think, yaknow, the way you like it might not be the way I like it, the water might be a bit cold for me, and I’m all showered up now, so, yaknow, I’ll carry on tidying, or something now.’

Sasuke flicked a blonde lock off Naruto’s forehead. ‘You’ve still got foam in your hair.’

‘I’ll just towel it off, it’ll be fine. Maybe in tomorrow’s ninja lesson you can teach me how to keep my hair perfectly in place like yours.’ Naruto went to step out of the shower, Sasuke caught hold of his waist.

‘Naruto, I need you.’

Naruto’s eyes widened, his heart pounded hard and then felt like it had stopped entirely.

‘Naruto, I need you to be more relaxed around me. Your idiot friends have been suspicious the whole time they’ve been here, what will Itachi think when he arrives? I’m impersonating his brother, it’s important to me that he believes that I am the Sasuke from this world. He bought this house for you as an engagement presents, which strongly implies he supports us as a couple, don’t you agree? Although I found them mostly useless beyond the initial information, your friends did make it repeatedly clear that the Sasuke and Naruto from this world are not shy about being intimate in front of others. We need to put that into practice.’

Naruto blinked several times, he didn’t know if it was the uneven beating of his heart, but Sasuke wasn’t making any sense to him. How could he understand another being so perfectly and also know nothing about them?  
‘I’m not sure what you mean. Maybe tell me again once we’re both dressed.’

Sasuke sighed. ‘I hoped it would be obvious to you, but I’ll make it clearer. We need to have sex.’

Naruto jumped out of the shower grabbed a towel and wrapped it around him.

‘Don’t be a child, we’re both adults, having sex is the natural thing to do. We’ve decided to pretend to be the people from this world, so it’s a necessary step to take to increase our intimacy. Your acting can’t be relied on, therefore the easiest answer is to actually become lovers. Otherwise Itachi will look at us and know immediately that we are two people who have never been intimate.’

‘No, Sasuke. Just no. You don’t get to kiss Neji, then tell me I stink, then get naked in a shower with me and make me think of our…friendship… and then top it all off by saying you need to have sex with me because you want to impress your brother.’ Naruto fumbled trying to secure the towel around him, ending up revealing more skin than he covered. ‘Is that how it works for you, you tell people you want to have sex with them and that’s all you need to do? You say the word and they’ll let you do whatever you want?’

‘Yes,’ Sasuke answered seriously. ‘Although most times I don’t have to say anything.’ He shrugged. ‘I just gesture for them to come over to me.’ Sasuke gave a small beckoning with one finger accompanied by a slight narrowing of his eyes.

Naruto gritted his teeth and emitted a low growl, he hated that parts of him wanted to respond to the raven. Angrily he pulled at his towel and tried to retie it.

Sasuke stepped out of the shower, took Naruto’s towel and tied it expertly around the blonde’s waist. He took another towel from the rail and began rubbing Naruto’s hair. ‘I’m going to be truthful with you. I don’t know what I am doing with you. I’ve been living with people who look at all other humans as fodder for experiments. In fact, I can’t distance myself, I am one of them. You know it, I know it. For so many years when I see someone, all I’m looking at is an object and deciding whether it’s of use to me. I don’t have conversations, I have confrontations. To be clear this was before Orochimaru, he didn’t corrupt me, it was why I went to him, because he was of use to me. And people give me what I want, because they’re scared, or attracted to me, or both. Apart from you.’

‘I’m not scared of you, if that’s what you mean.’ Naruto frowned.

‘I know you’re not. And you should be more than anyone. But that’s not what I meant.’ Sasuke put the towel to the side and instead tousled his fingers through Naruto’s hair, looking at what his hands were doing rather than into Naruto’s face. ‘What I mean, is that you are the only person I want something from, and you’re the only person I look at beyond their use to me. Or perhaps, in another way, I want everything from you but I want to take nothing from you, I just need you to be. And I’m certain that you understand because you feel the same way, but I’m utterly confused and unsure of myself around you because I don’t know how to interact with anyone normally anymore. Yet I’m more comfortable being here with you in this strange place than I have been since we were kids, the times when the two of us were alone together, they were as special to me as they were to you. And I’m also more nervous than I have been with anyone at any time.’ Sasuke stepped back looking critically at Naruto’s hair. ‘On top of all these emotions, I’m unsure what are my true feelings and what are echoes from inhabiting the life of this other Sasuke.’ Sasuke put his hands on Naruto’s shoulders and steered him in front of his mirror. ‘Styling straight out of the shower when your hair is wet is the secret, no hidden jutsu.’

Naruto laughed at his reflection, Sasuke had made his hair look like a blonde copy of his own. He put an exploratory hand up to touch the creation and it immediately collapsed into its usual mess.

Sasuke smiled. ‘Okay, where you are concerned there’s obviously a lot more involved to try and get your hair to be even mildly obedient.’

Naruto gazed at the two of them in the mirror, he rested his head on Sasuke’s shoulder but kept looking forward and met Sasuke’s dark eyes in their reflection. ‘What do we do now, teme?’

Sasuke put his arms around Naruto and Naruto felt all the emotions that Sasuke had spoken of in the other man’s touch, somehow there was both the naturalness of them being together and the darting fear of being rejected. 

‘Maybe I am a bit scared of you,’ Naruto said. ‘If this is being honest time. My heart is beating so fast, I don’t know if I’ve got control of my body, and I don’t know if my body wants to leap on top of you or run away. Well, little lie, I do know what my body wants to do. Kinda. Because I’ve not done anything like that before. A bit, yaknow, with you, yaknow when we mucked around, does that count? I know it was a long time ago, but I remember. Though, I’ll know what to do, you won’t be better than me, I know that!’ Naruto blushed as Sasuke laughed, not unkindly, at his bluster. He continued in a quieter voice. ‘But I don’t know what I want to do, what I should do. I’m so scared of doing something wrong and you leave me again and I lose all hope of ever bringing you home.’ 

‘Shush,’ Sasuke stroked Naruto’s arms. ‘I don’t know what you and I are going to do, but I do know as far as I’m concerned you can never do anything wrong. Even when you’re at your most annoying, it’s you, so it’s right.’

Naruto was more than tempted to punch Sasuke away for daring to say he was the annoying one! But right now within Sasuke’s embrace there was peace, and Naruto didn’t need any extra special shinobi abilities to know that it wasn’t going to last, so he leaned more of his weight against the brunette, and allowed himself to enjoy this one moment of happiness he had been chasing for so long.


	11. Chapter 11

Sasuke forced himself to stop pacing backwards and forwards and stood still staring out over the greenery. If Naruto paused from the mad housework he insisted on doing and looked out of the window, Sasuke wanted him to see a calm composed person, not some nervous animal. He should really be indoors too, helping Naruto, or rather cleaning up after Naruto’s attempts at tidying. For someone who’d lived alone for so long, Naruto had no idea about even the basics of housekeeping. Or maybe it was being alone all his life that had made him so useless; no one there who cared whether he threw his clothes on the floor or hung them up. The thought made his heart ache. No one there who cared. Then a vivid image flashed into his mind, of him being the one to teach the blonde that you didn’t need to drown the dishes in two whole bottles of washing up liquid to clean them. But maybe he shouldn’t teach the other ninja anything, Naruto had looked so cute with the bubbles flowing over from the sink and covering him as he got soaked trying to actually find a plate underneath all the white foam. It’d taken a lot of Sasuke’s will power not to go over and lift him up and…

Sasuke cut his thought off. This was why he had to come outside and leave Naruto alone in the house. He wasn’t the sort of man who looked at someone and thought they were ‘cute’. He was the sort of man who took what he wanted when he wanted it and never thought much about it either before or after. Yet he couldn’t deny that holding Naruto in the bathroom, their bodies dripping with water, him completely naked, Naruto with just a towel, had been the single most erotic and sensual experience of his whole life. If nothing else happened between them, he’d forever ache with yearning, but he’d always hold that one memory close to his heart.

The kick landed in the small of Sasuke’s back and sent him flying forward across the garden. He recovered quickly to turn in the air and land facing his unknown opponent. Two thoughts appeared in his mind, one immediately after the other:

Firstly, relief that the puppeteer of this whole world had finally revealed themselves. It made logical sense that the person who could land a blow like that, catching him completely off guard, was the same person who was powerful enough to send both him and Naruto into a different dimension.   
Secondly, a total hollowness that he’d now beat this person, just as he beat everyone, and Naruto and him would be returned to their correct place. A place where Naruto was someone he tortured and fought. Not a place where they showered together, and where the blonde ninja allowed a naked Sasuke to hold him.

Then Sasuke eyes focused on the tall, elegant figure of his brother and his mind went blank.

‘Itachi?’ He could barely speak that one name without his voice cracking. ‘How are you here?’

‘I caught an earlier flight.’ Itachi strode towards his brother. ‘You should be asking why I kicked you.’

‘Because I deserved it, and much worse,’ Sasuke replied simply. But he wanted to keep saying ‘how are you here?’ because the man before him didn’t look like a rough copy in the model of Naruto’s friends, he looked, and sounded, and moved, exactly like his own brother. The only difference was the clothes. In place of the Akatsuki robe he’d worn for so long, Itachi had on one of the well-fitted suits that Sasuke knew from his research were fashionable here. The Sasuke-here’s wardrobe was filled with similar garments in the same dark colours. He wished he was wearing one now, or even better his own clothes, rather than the shirt and jeans he’d let Naruto choose for him.

‘You do deserve it. And as you say, much worse.’ Itachi reached him and flicked two fingers against his forehead. ‘But I’m sorry if I caught you off-guard and hurt you, I expected you to respond better than that.’

Sasuke frowned at the other man, no living person in his own world had better responses than him, let alone in this world where ninjas were a thing of pure fantasy.

‘You were distracted, thinking about Naruto I presume?’

Sasuke nodded not trusting himself to speak.

‘Hmmm, well, let’s talk about that then.’ He took Sasuke by the hand exactly in the manner of an older brother guiding a younger one, and led him down to sit beside him on a bench. ‘Naruto being totally oblivious to time differences and calling to moan about you isn’t so unusual, but Naruto almost pleading with me to visit you as if he isn’t fully aware I look for any excuse to spend more time with you is…concerning. And now I’m here, I find Naruto acting as if the hoover is a foreign creature which he’s gone to war with, which could be completely normal for him. But why did he insist that I teach him how to use it as he wanted to ‘surprise’ you? And why are you leaving him in the house on his own, when we both know that the only surprise you’ll get is him sucking up your favourite vicuna scarf? The man I just spoke with is not the Naruto I know.’

Sasuke looked at Itachi from the corner of his eyes, he couldn’t look at him fully yet as it flashed him back to a vision of a blood covered face, empty and dead.  
‘You don’t think that’s the Naruto you know?’

‘That’s what I said, little brother. Now are you going to repeat everything I say, or are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

‘His friends all thought he was normal and I was the one acting strangely.’

Itachi ruffled Sasuke’s hair. ‘I’ve met many of your friends. They might all be Oxford educated with multiple international qualifications, but they’re still people and they see what they expect to see, whereas I see what is there.’

‘Which is?’ Sasuke braced his body and forced himself to look directly at this man who was so perfectly like his brother.

‘Naruto is insecure, nervous, doubting his own power and doubting your love for him. He’s desperate to impress you, but has no idea how. It’s comparable to meeting a new boyfriend you’ve had a couple of dates with, rather than how I last saw you, when Naruto was dictating every detail of your wedding day to you on the terms that if they weren’t exactly adhered to he wouldn’t marry you.’ Itachi gave a small smile. ‘I would have pitied you if I didn’t know how truly lucky you were.’

Sasuke swallowed hard. ‘And what about me? Am I at all like the little brother you know?’

Itachi stared into his eyes for a long moment. ‘When I look at you I’m afraid I still always see my sweet baby brother and I suspect it’s going to be the same right until the day when we’re both old men and I’m breathing my last. I’m planning to live a very long life, so your face will be a mess of wrinkles, your eyes will be cloudy, and your hair would have thinned, but I’ll look at you and still see the baby faced boy with the big kind eyes begging me to forget all about my homework and instead spend the day much more productively giving him piggy backs around the garden.’

Sasuke clenched his teeth together, determined not to let tears flood his eyes.

‘Sasuke, tell me if I’m wrong, if you think you’re a different person now. I’ve known you from the day you were born, and I’m aware I may be lost in childhood memories that are no longer relevant, but the only person I’ve ever met who loves as fiercely and as hard as you do, with so much devotion it constantly hurts, is Naruto. But whereas the hardships he’s suffered have made him seize every moment and throw himself completely head first without any pause into your relationship, what’s happened in our family has made you frightened to be vulnerable, scared of living through that loss and trauma again. Your connection with Naruto saved you from completely detaching yourself, he gave you life, but my suspicion is that on the verge of committing totally to him, your fear is rising. You’re pushing him to the limits, testing him, making him prove himself to you. So either tell me I’m wrong, or tell me what you’ve done and we can start mending the damage together.’

‘I kissed Neji,’ Sasuke murmured so quietly that it is barely audible.

‘Hyuga Neji? Well, that makes sense. You probably convinced yourself that logically you had more in common with him and by choosing someone you’ve known so long and kissed before you met Naruto, I suspect you were trying to show yourself that you aren’t dependent on Naruto, that if you wanted them you had other options. And what did you find out to be the truth?’

Sasuke wished that Itachi looked at least a little bit shocked that his little brother would kiss someone other than his fiancé. ‘ I learnt that I can be a complete dick sometimes.’

‘And?’

‘That Neji was lying when he said he likes to give me my space and time alone, he keeps texting and trying to ring me. The constant buzzing became so annoying I threw the phone in the bin.’

Itachi smiled. ‘You could have just turned it off. But stop stalling and tell me what you really learnt, although I should say reconfirmed ,as you already knew it with every fibre of your being, but you like to make life difficult, don’t you?’

Sasuke stared towards the house where he could feel Naruto’s presence moving around. Within their bond he sensed happiness so the dobe probably was busy doing something he was proud of, which probably would be a total mess.  
‘There’s no one else like him. For me there can only be Naruto.’ He closed his eyes thinking of the feel of Naruto’s skin against his. ‘You said I love the same as Naruto, but that is wrong. He loves everyone he meets, anyone shows him the smallest kindness and he’s ready to die for them. He’ll chase around the world after the worst, most violent, undeserving person because of a few meaningless childhood memories of bickering and competing. And sharing nevertold secrets. And holding him when he screamed out his nightmares. And making each other laugh with jokes that no one else could ever understand. And buying him ramen when he’s spent all his money on an idiotic frog hat.’ Sasuke smirked. ‘I think I could brutally slaughter every single person and burn Konoha to the ground, and he’d still be declaring we were best friends and that he could save me, on the strength of the ramen memory alone. He was so grateful for me giving him food it was insanely stupid.’

‘And it made you go home and cry tears of rage and you did truly want to destroy the village that he loves so much. All those adults ignoring the bright lonely kid in their midst, leaving him lost and hungry, letting him fend for himself and pretending not to notice when his belly became hollow, or telling themselves it’s for his own good, to teach him how to be strong and to survive. You felt his pain, every single slight of his young years. And it made you scared because you wanted to protect him but you were helpless, so aware of how cruel and cold the whole world is to lone children that don’t fit in. You felt so vulnerable that all you wanted to do was to run away, you couldn’t bear seeing them every day, all the hypocrites that smiled and acted friendly while being capable of leaving a child to starve to death. And you hated that Naruto smiled back at them, actually desperately wanted to be friends and accepted by all those people who had neglected him. You needed to leave before you went mad and took out your frustration on Naruto rather than those who deserved it. You wanted to become so strong that you could take on the whole world and no one you loved could ever be hurt again.’

Sasuke opened his eyes, for a moment he thought he saw a crow perched in a tree high above his head, then he blinked and it was gone. He turned to Itachi, unsure what to think or feel.

‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?’ Itachi said with an indulgent smile. ‘How many important conversations do I have to repeat with you because you’ve got lost in a daydream about your fiancé?’

Sasuke shook his head. ‘I heard every word. But it wasn’t like that, I didn’t leave because of the reasons you said. I got stronger because I needed to avenge my clan. Because of what you did to our parents.’

Itachi’s face became immediately serious. ‘Sasuke, I was talking to you about the best way to remedy your Neji situation. Whether it was worth cheering Naruto up by telling him that through a lot of pulling in favours and working all my connections I’ve managed to get in contact with Ms Minogue’s people about performing at your wedding, or whether we should wait until it is definite so as not to risk disappointing him.’ He puts his hand on Sasuke’s forehead. ‘Are you feeling okay, little brother? Has thinking about a wedding ceremony made you start thinking about mum and dad again? I know we’ve spoken about it a lot over the years, but anytime you need to speak about it, we can. Is that why you wanted me here, it’s on your mind again?’

Sasuke brushed his touch across the hand on his forehead. It felt completely real, completely like his lost brother, but so had the voice just now, talking about his childhood and his feelings for Naruto as if it knew him better than he knew himself.

‘Are you going to say that everything you did was for my sake?’ Sasuke said faintly. He had deliberately not researched into what happened to the parents of the Sasuke in this world, a stupid bit of emotionalism, every bit of information could be important. But sat here with the man that was the exact replica of Itachi, hearing his brother’s voice saying things that this Itachi wouldn’t know anything about, Sasuke didn’t have the energy to mentally chastise himself for his weakness.

‘Yes. I don’t have a new story. It is the same one. They both, but especially father, saw no other way, but the two of us continuing in the family… business. I would inherit the power, you the well-trained back up. I could harden myself, make myself do it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of all that beautiful kindness leaving you and you becoming someone who existed in a world of kill or be killed. I wanted you to have a chance of normality, to be able to use your immense intellect in an area of your choice, not being forced to spend every minute of every day having to outwit your enemy.’ Itachi removed his hand from Sasuke’s forehead and rested it on his shoulder instead. ‘There were so many things in my plan that could have gone wrong, but even now I can think of no other way I could have done it and kept you safe. There are so many people who would think it the fulfilment of their life to take revenge on an Uchiha child, I needed to keep the sense of power without creating any situations that would put you in danger. I traded our parents for you. That was my choice, Sasuke, it’s not your burden to carry, it’s mine. And it is the same choice I would always make. Do you still understand that?’

Sasuke nodded.

‘You hero-worshipped me and I chose, and choose, to take the responsibility of that love and make every decision of my life with your well-being at the centre. When you ran off to London on your own to find Naruto, I thought I’d failed, I’d lost you, that I hadn’t been able to protect you after all. Then I realised that it was the exact opposite, you were in a position to make your own decisions just as I wanted you to be, and you had chosen love. I was so happy to be able to find Naruto for you, and to see how much he adored you. All I ask now, Sasuke, is that you make me proud, you take responsibility for how much Naruto loves you. Whatever you do he’ll love you and be by your side, so don’t test him, don’t abuse him, treasure him, be worthy of him. And talking about your own personal ball of sunshine, here he is.’

Sasuke looked at the blonde coming out of the house, his walk was slightly hesitant but Itachi waved for him to come over and he moved with his usual bounce. He was wearing an apron, but seemed to have managed to throw flour and gunk on every part of him apart from the apron. He held a tray before him with a proud smile he presented it to the brothers.  
‘I made muffins.’

Itachi gave a polite smile. ‘Can you save one for me for later, please, I ate on the plane and am full at the moment. They look delicious though, I can see why Sasuke has removed the ban on you cooking.’  
Naruto beamed and dropped the whole tray on Sasuke’s lap. ‘They’re more for Sasuke anyhow, I found a recipe, but it didn’t have tomatoes in, so I added tomatoes and lots of cinnamon, yaknow, all Sasuke’s favourite things, to make them even better.’ He plonked himself down next to Sasuke and continued to chatter happily about his cooking experiments, but he reached a hand out to the ravens and traced a message asking if he was all right and if he wanted Naruto to stay or go.  
Sasuke traced back, ‘please stay.’ Then steeling himself with more nerve than he needed in the toughest battles, he lifted one of the crusty misshapen creations that Naruto was calling muffins and put it in his mouth. It was a miracle how Naruto had managed to burn the outside to charcoal and yet ensure that the inside kept its pure raw gooiness.  
‘Do you like?’ Naruto asked with raised eyebrows and wide eyes.  
‘It’s amazing,’ Sasuke managed to say, somehow preventing himself from choking.  
‘Brilliant! I was worried there’d be rubbish and you’d hate them. I’m so happy I’ve got something right at last, because to be honest, I don’t know how it’s turned out like this, but my tidying has made everything look messier.’ Naruto reached a hand out to grab one for himself.  
Sasuke quickly brushed it away. ‘No, I want all these myself. They’re not for sharing.’  
‘You like them that much?’  
‘Yes.’ Sasuke smiled and his smile was genuine. They were the most disgusting thing he’d ever tasted, but Naruto had made them for him.  
‘That’s good, maybe you won’t be too cross then that I may have started another very teeny, tiny, fire. Or two.’

Sasuke listened to Naruto talk about what a formidable foe the hoover had been and how the oven rebelled, and he watched as his brother smiled and laughed at Naruto’s babbling voice. Of its own accord his hand lifted another ‘muffin’ to his mouth and as his teeth battled with the rock texture, Sasuke thought to himself, he would be perfectly content if this was all he had to eat for the rest of his life, as long as it meant Naruto was at his side doing his atrocious cooking. And loving him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely readers, thank you as always for giving time to this little story I am putting together. It really makes me feel all sparkly to be able to share this with you and know that there are people who I'll never meet but I am able to communicate and connect with through my love of fanfiction.
> 
> This chapter has a slight citrusy favour, so if you are sensitive to lemon things maybe skip this one. I don't think it gets hardcore at all, but I am aware that everyone has different levels to these things. My boys seem to be little chatterboxes who want to spend more time talking than getting it on :)
> 
> Big virtual hugs to everyone journeying through this story alongside me.

Sasuke and Naruto lay on top of the sheets fully clothed with inches of empty space between their two bodies. Sasuke was completely silent.

Naruto couldn’t stop talking. ‘Itachi is a really nice guy. In this world. Anyway, I mean. I didn’t really get to know him in our world, what with you, yaknow, brutally killing him and all. Did he tell you when he’ll be back? He was talking to me about our wedding…no, not ours, obviously not ours, but the real people who live here. It sounds like it’s going to be really big. All our friends will be there, it’ll be nice seeing them again, won’t it? Yaknow, if we’re still about here when the wedding is supposed to happen. I didn’t understand half of what he was talking about, the themes and colour schemes and things. Like he kept asking me if I was sure I wanted a Tardis wedding cake, I thought it was best to just say yes to everything, right?’

When Sasuke still refused to say anything, Naruto kept on chatting. ‘I’m going to have a bouquet of orange roses which sounds really pretty. And he said we should finalise our wedding ring design. And wanted to know whether you’d agreed to the trampolines, magician and karaoke yet? It sounds like it’s going to be a crazy big party. I guess, if I was ever going to get married, it’s the type of thing I’d really like. What about you?’ 

Naruto waited impatiently for Sasuke to speak, fidgeting his hands together. This time he was determined that it would be Sasuke who would break the uncomfortable silence that had weighed between them since they came into the bedroom.   
After all it’d been Sasuke who, immediately after Itachi left, had said they should go to bed. It’d been Sasuke who stared at Naruto in that way when Naruto had innocently said that he wasn’t tired. It’d been Sasuke who took Naruto’s hand and led him up here. And now it was Sasuke who was lying rigid and refusing to communicate.

‘I wouldn’t get married,’ Sasuke finally answered. ‘Not to you.’

‘Oh.’ Naruto swallowed hard a couple of times before he could speak normally. ‘Well, yaknow, I wouldn’t want…’

‘You and I don’t need to declare how we feel to anyone else to make it real.’ Sasuke turned his head slightly towards the blonde. Bright blue eyes gazed into eyes as dark as midnight. ‘I’d take you somewhere quiet where neither of us has been before, a place that has never seen war or bloodshed. There’ll be a still lake and wild flowers, lots of flowers. I’ll hold you and tell you that you’re mine, that nothing, not even death, will ever part me from your side. That I’ll always find a way to protect you and care for you, across the whole of eternity you’ll be safe and secure and know you’ll never be alone again.’

For a long moment Naruto couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and shut several times, before he rubbed the back of his head and grinned widely. ‘But what about the trampolines? Do you know what trampolines even are? Itachi showed me a video, can you imagine the fun of just endlessly bouncing up and down…’   
‘Yes. I can.’ In a swift movement, barely perceptible to normal eyesight, Sasuke rolled on top of Naruto, his hands resting either side of Naruto’s head.

Slowly he leaned into the other ninja until the tips of their noses were touching. ‘Uzumaki Naruto. You know who I am. You know the things I’ve done. I can’t change my past but you can change my future. May I please kiss you?’

Naruto didn’t trust himself to speak, he thought the sounds that might come out of his mouth would be high pitched squeals of excitement. It was as if this was the moment he’d been waiting for his whole life, all the fighting, all the pain, was so he could survive and experience this very moment when Sasuke asked to kiss him. The emotions pounding through him were so intense that he wondered how he’d lived so many years without realising that the purpose of his being was not to become hokage, or be acknowledged by the village, it was to love and be loved by this man.

He put his arms around Sasuke and pulled the raven down on him so he could feel the whole weight of the other man’s body on top of him. He closed his eyes and his lips found Sasuke’s by instinct. They crushed together, tongues immediately discovering each other, pushing and entwining with hunger bordering on starvation. Moving with their own internal lust Naruto’s legs wrapped around Sasuke’s waist and his hips ground up into the raven’s. The only thing Naruto could compare the heat pulsing through him with, was in the early days when the kyubi’s anger and power had raged beyond his control and completely taken him over. But this was different, in that he didn’t feel like he was being lost, it felt like the truth of his soul was finally free and was soaring with exaltation into the outside world.

Sasuke pulled back and Naruto’s lips followed him, unwilling to be separated from the other man, caressing neck and throat as Sasuke spoke.

‘I’ve been thinking and planning about how gentle and slow to be with you, how to hold my desire back so I don’t hurt you, and now I see that’s not the problem, the problem is you’re going to make me come before we even do anything.’

Naruto’s head dropped back to the pillow. ‘Am I doing things wrong?’

Sasuke smiled as widely as one of Naruto’s grin. ‘I’ve just never had someone I care for in my bed before. I’ve never had you. Give me a moment to breathe.’ He untangled himself from Naruto’s legs and rolled back to his side of the bed. ‘I presumed I was the expert, but this is a whole new experience.’

‘A new good experience?’ Naruto asked with wide eyes. ‘Are you happy?’

‘How can you ask that? It’s so far beyond good there’s no word for it. And all we’ve done is kiss.’ Sasuke took one of Naruto’s hands in his own caressing his thumb over Naruto’s palm. ‘Feel for yourself how happy I am.’ He placed Naruto’s hand on his crotch.

Naruto didn’t even try to suppress the moan of pleasure that escaped from his lips at touching Sasuke’s hardness. Even through the fabric of Sasuke’s clothes the intimacy was so pleasurable it verged on painful.

Tentatively Naruto moved his fingers up and down the length. Sasuke groaned deeply arching his back.

‘What is it about you, Usuratonkachi?’ he said between pants. ‘So many times I’ve spent hours fucking beautiful, incredibly skilled, people without even coming close to an orgasm, yet just the beginnings of making out with you and it feels like my whole body is going to explode.’

Naruto stared at Sasuke, he’d never seen his best friend like this, or even close to this, before. His face was flushed, but looked youthful and for some crazy reason, innocent. His voice was softer, the way he pronounced ‘Usuratonkachi’ sent shivers through Naruto as if his whole body was being caressed just by the sound of Sasuke speaking.  
‘It’s the same for me,’ Naruto said. ‘Well, apart from the bit about spending time with, yaknow, beautiful people, more the thing about exploding. But in a good way. Not in the you trying to tear me apart and kill me kinda way.’

To Naruto’s shock, Sasuke started crying, his whole body shaking with weeping. Naruto pulled him against him in a completely different manner to the way he’d held him mere minutes previously. Sasuke’s head was against his chest, and he rested his cheek against Sasuke’s hair.  
When Sasuke’s sobbing subsided, Naruto spoke, ‘What’s wrong, honey? I know I’m a dobe and have done something wrong again, tell me what it is. Please. I’m sorry.’

Sasuke suddenly sat upright and put two fingers under Naruto’s chin, raising the blonde’s face up. ‘Don’t ever say that to me.’

‘Call you honey? Sorry it just slipped out and seemed right in the moment, but I get that you don’t like and…’

Sasuke let his hand drop back to his side. ‘Don’t ever say sorry to me. Never say that. It’s me who should forever be on my knees in front of you begging forgiveness. But whatever I do it’ll never be enough.’ He held his hands up and stared at them as if they were foreign objects. ‘The things I’ve done.’

Naruto grasped Sasuke’s hands in his own and kissed each of Sasuke’s fingers in turn. ‘Together, you and me, we can begin again.’ Then he leaned forward and kissed Sasuke on the lips, a gentle, lingering, caress this time, which still made his heart thump as hard as the earlier hungry kiss.

‘Can we?’ Sasuke’s eyes were tired and pleading.

Naruto nodded. His tongue darted over Sasuke’s face, finding and licking away the salty track of the raven’s tears.

‘Being with you is so intense. I’ve had such complete control of my emotions for so long I thought it was natural, part of me, but with you…I feel like a fire with things constantly thrown at it and I don’t know from moment to moment whether I am going to drown or shoot out fireworks.’ Sasuke gave a weak smile. ‘I never have doubts. But with you… now… I can’t stop questioning why you would ever choose to be with me.’

‘Because it’s not a choice.’ Naruto kissed Sasuke, his tongue running over the edge of the other man’s lips, delving into the dips at the corners. ‘It just is. Like the sun and the moon.’ He pressed his lips with more pressure against Sasuke’s.

Sasuke held him away. ‘The sun and the moon? You’re obviously the sun, so I must be the moon. Do you mean I only shine when I have your light on me? Or that I am some sort of tool to be used in the destruction of the whole ninja world?’

‘Don’t question my images, yaknow, that’s not fair. I didn’t ask about your odd firework-drowning thing even though it made no sense at all.’

‘It made perfect sense if you have the brains to understand it.’

Naruto crossed his arms over his body. ‘Just because I felt sorry for you crying, and I’m mega turned on by you, doesn’t mean that you get to say I’m stupid. I’m going to stop kissing you soon.’

‘No. You’re not.’ Sasuke stood up and in movements that were both delicate and overwhelmingly masculine stripped all his clothes off. ‘You should, but you’re not going to stop. Are you?’ Sasuke turned slowly around giving Naruto a full view of his whole body.

Naruto could do nothing but stare open mouthed at the other ninja and try to fight off the strange sensation that he was going to have a neverending nose bleed.

Sasuke looked over his shoulder at the blonde. ‘If you really think we can begin again with our lives, let’s attempt a trial run now. Forget I cried. Don’t mention anything about my many and varied attacks on you over the years, even, in fact, especially, if you’re just being light and joking. Obliterate from your memory the awful attempt at seduction in the shower when I basically told you you had to have sex wth me. Can you do that?’

Naruto nodded. ‘Easily, There is nothing in my brain. I mean, yaknow, not in the way you mean when you say I’m useless, I mean, you standing there like that, all I can think is…wow. Are all men as attractive as you? I’ve only been looking at girls as hot, but if other guys are like you, wow, why have I never noticed before? I kinda, I think, maybe at some level, might have checked you out once. Or a couple of times. Or maybe a few more, yaknow, it’s hard not to sometimes with the clothes you wear which show all your… but I never really realised a man could make me feel like this, if I had I wouldn’t have wasted all that time asking Sakura out, I could have asked Gaara instead, me and Gaara always had a connection and…’

A frown flitted across Sasuke’s perfect features. ‘No other man, no other person, will make you feel like I do.’

Naruto grinned. ‘I appreciate so much that you trust me and show me all sides of you, but right now there’s something about superconfident Sasuke that seems extra hot.’ He flipped onto his stomach with his legs crossed in the air and his chin resting on his hands. ‘So, umm, what do you find hot about me?’

Sasuke reached over and brushed the back of his hand over Naruto’s cheek. ‘Everything. Your smile. Your pain. That I know there is an incredibly toned body waiting to be discovered under the hideous clothes you wear. Mostly that when I look into your eyes I believe that the world is a good place filled with hope.’ He stretched his arms above his head. ‘But bolstering your ego can wait. Right now, I’m going to the bathroom. Be naked when I get back, or I can undress you. Whichever you prefer.’

‘Wait. Don’t leave me. Not now.’ Naruto sprung off the bed and put his arms around Sasuke’s chest. ‘Things flip so fast between us, so stay with me while they’re good. By the time you return from the bathroom you might have got angry at me again, or bored, or decide that this thing we’re feeling is an illusion and we need to refocus on getting home. If you’re going to the bathroom, I’m coming with you.’

Sasuke’s cheeks blushed a deep red but he didn’t shake away from Naruto. ‘You always did have a problem with personal boundaries. If you must know, I want to be separate from you. I need time to recompose myself. And…before we go further with this I need to take the edge off my lust, you affect me far more than I ever thought possible.’

Naruto gazed at Sasuke with no understanding. ‘I’m not letting you get away from me again.’

Sasuke gently pushed Naruto’s arms away from his body. ‘Right now, you just clinging to me like that, makes me want to…’ He rubbed his thumb against the glistening drops of precum on the edge of his hardness and then put his thumb to Naruto’s lips. 

Naruto sucked hard. ‘You taste of fire. No, not fire. I get what you said now about fireworks. You taste of what it feels like standing holding hands with the person you love on the darkest night of winter watching a firework display.’

Sasuke gave a small smile. ‘I can say without doubt no one has ever described me like that before.’ He kept his thumb in Naruto’s mouth a moment longer as his finger caressed over the blonde’s face, before stepping away. ‘Now let me go, dobe. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it to you. You turn me on too much, since our first kiss I’ve been in constant battle to not just rip your clothes off, bend you over, and fuck you with all my strength.’

Naruto chuckled. ‘You’ve felt like that since we were kids and I tripped on you in class? That’s a hella long internal battle, no wonder you had to leave the village and get away from me!’ 

‘You know exactly what I meant.’

‘I do.’ Naruto stepped forward and put his arms around Sasuke’s waist. ‘So why aren’t I naked yet with you inside me?’

‘Hnnnnn.’ Sasuke again slipped away from Naruto’s touch. ‘You want to make me say it. Fine. For the first time in my life, I’m concerned about sexually disappointing someone. When I imagined being with you, I thought I’d be the one with all the power, but in reality you’re driving me wild with the simplest things. I think I’m going to come before I get anywhere close to satisfying you. So I need to go and be alone and masturbate by myself and hopefully some of my lust will disappear and I can be more in control with you. There, is that clear enough for you? Now will you let me go?’

Naruto openly laughed. ‘Nooo Way!’ He jumped into Sasuke’s arms wrapping his legs tightly around the raven’s waist. ‘I’m going to be the one that makes you come just by kissing you.’ 

The blonde pushed his lips hard against Sasuke’s, his tongue teasing into the other man’s mouth. In less than a second, Sasuke responded, opening his lips wide and flicking his own tongue back into Naruto’s mouth. He dug his fingers into Naruto’s back pulling the other ninja even closer against his naked skin. Naruto’s own hands moved with speed from being entwined in Sasuke’s hair, to stretching down to the curve of his buttocks, as if he desperately wanted to be able to touch every inch of the raven’s skin in the same moment. The blonde squeezed his thighs tighter around Sasuke’s waist with a pressure that would have hurt a normal human, but for the two ninjas, it served to increase the passion between them. Their chests were rising and falling with as much effort as if they were near the end of one of their most strenuous fights. They moaned into each other, but refused to separate even for an instant to breathe easier. 

It could have been an eternity, it could have been a matter of nanoseconds, when Sasuke did pull his lips away and called out Naruto’s name in a voice that expressed every nuance of their friendship and love for each other more fully than a lifetime of conversations ever could. Almost in the same moment his knees buckled to the floor. He held on tightly to Naruto as they fell down as one body, and it felt like all the strength he had left in his body was focused solely on keeping the blonde close to him, everything else had drained away.

They lay in an unbreakable embrace panting and sweating as hard as if they actually were having sex instead of lying in a tangled mess on the floor.  
When Naruto’s breath had returned enough, he was the one to speak. ‘I really want to tease you that I made you come from just kissing, but I came too.’

‘I know.’ Sasuke gathered the strength to move his hand and tousle the blonde’s hair.

‘I think I’m just about ready to go again. Maybe a bit further this time?’ Naruto wiggled about until he was positioned so he could look into Sasuke’s face. ‘If you want to?’

Sasuke kissed Naruto’s forehead. ‘I want to, but I need more time.’

Naruto smiled with the brightness of the happiest person in the world. ‘Uchiha Sasuke, I want to be really clear on this point, yaknow, but are you admitting that I’m not only the best lover you’ve ever had, who can get you hot with just really casual kissing, but that also I am a better lover than you are, as I can recover much faster and probably do all sorts of amazing things that you can’t even dream of?’

‘That was NOT casual kissing,’ Sasuke insisted.

‘Whatever.’ Naruto rubbed his nose playfully against Sasuke’s. ‘The important part is you admitting that I’m a better lover than you.’

Sasuke opened his mouth and looked as if he was going to argue, but then he gazed into Naruto’s blue eyes and everything about him softened. He pulled Naruto against his chest in a tight snuggle. ‘There’s no point fighting against it any longer, is there? Naruto kun, I admit it for now and all time, you truly are the very best.’


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I've been thinking about this chapter for a long time, but have only just now had the opportunity to finish writing it at past midnight my time. I'm going to be so tired in the morning, I really hope it is worth it and that you enjoy it and like what is happening with the story.
> 
> As always thank you so much for reading this far, and all feedback and comments are really appreciated.
> 
> I'm going to bed now and hopefully I'll dream happy Sasunaru dreams, as I hope you all do too x

Sasuke breathed deeply. He should be lying in bed beside his love, instead he was racing across a destroyed landscape, his soul thrumming with thoughts that he could barely comprehend. The air churned with dust and dirt, but his eyes saw through it and discovered Naruto on a collision course with him. He tried to stop or swerve, but his body was beyond his control, all he managed to do was to lessen his speed before he pummelled into the blonde. They clung onto each other, tumbling down a steep jut in the ground. Sasuke did what he could in the turmoil of the moment to wrap himself around the other man and take as much of the damage onto his own body. However, Naruto was trying to do the same so they ended up more tangled and bruised as they fell.

Dust and dirt filled Sasuke’s nostrils and mouth. And blood. Something snapped. A bone?  
God, please, please let it be mine. Whatever is happening keep him safe. Please. Please. Please…  
They stopped falling.  
There was so much pain all over his body, it was hard to be specific about what was hurting where. He felt a moment’s relief when he saw his own finger twisted at a painful angle. That had to be the snap he heard. Seeing it seemed to make his nervous system scream out with realisation that this was the centre of his agony. He barely cared though as his full attention was on his fiancé.  
When he’d gone to London to search out his missing internet friend, when Itachi had followed him and actually found the boy, his brother had tried to stop him visiting Naruto in hospital, telling him to wait until the doctors had done their work, that it would be too distressing, too much of a shock for Sasuke who was still so raw from what happened to their parents. When he’d ignored Itachi, (as well as the nurses who tried to tell him it was only family allowed in), and sneaked in to find Naruto looking so small, bandaged up, needles in his arms, tubes twisting everywhere, surrounded by big beeping machines, Sasuke hadn’t been even a fraction as scared and worried as he was now.  
Naruto arms were clutched around his stomach and he was bent over, his head almost touching the ground as he vomited up big dark clots of blood.  
All Sasuke could do was gently hold him, rub a clean corner of his shirt over Naruto’s face to catch the blood that was splattered over his chin.

‘Sas, Sas, what’s going on, where are we?’ Naruto croaked, his voice sounding like it belonged to an older and broken man, so different to the shining, energetic, blonde he knew and loved. ‘Is this a dream?’

‘A nightmare? God, I hope so.’ Sasuke looked around, hoping to see some solace somewhere, something, anything that was familiar and could help. There was nothing but dust and a torn apart landscape. Far above them was a clear sky with a few black birds (crows? Ravens? It didn’t matter) soaring free; the blue was beautiful, the same shade as his lover’s eyes, it looked so idyllic, that it was almost bizarre to think they could be suffering so much pain beneath such a beautiful blue vision.  
But that was how the world worked, he knew that better than most. The Earth kept on spinning on its axis, the sun kept on shining, and the birds kept on flying, completely oblivious of all the anguish tearing individual lives apart. He had decided at an early age that the world was a cruel, uncaring, place and as an adult he considered it a near miracle that he had found two people in his life that he could trust and rely on completely. But now one of those precious people was in his arms, pale and bloodied,  
Sasuke forced his bent finger back into a more normal direction, it didn’t make the digit any more usable, but if Naruto glanced over he wouldn’t see any cause to worry. That done he felt carefully over his fiancé’s body, searching for any obvious wounds or fractures. Naruto was only wearing his Kermit pyjama trousers. Sasuke remembered the morning working steadily through the long list of jobs he needed to complete before Naruto had one of his parties, making the food, hiding the most expensive items, putting coasters everywhere, while Naruto had lazed about playing one of those stupid games on his phone that he intermittently got addicted to. Then when Sasuke had lain down for a rest before the guests arrived, Sasuke had stubbornly remained fully dressed, while Naruto danced teasingly around begging Sasuke for some afternoon loving. Until he finally gave up and curled up on Sasuke’s chest, falling asleep so quickly and deeply that anyone would have thought the blonde had been the one sweating to make the house ready for their friends. The last thing Sasuke could recall was looking down on his sleeping form and thinking how much he loved the annoying, bright, beautiful, smart, unpredictable man.

‘Why didn’t I have sex with you?’ Sasuke stroked his hand gently over the bruises on Naruto’s chest.

Naruto’s eyes flickered and he smiled. ‘You said something about me being a lazy idiot who shouldn’t invite people over if I didn’t want to do the work. And you said you needed complete rest before you could face the group of imbeciles I insist on making friends with.’

‘I’m sorry. I do like…some of your friends. You can invite them all over as often as you want. Even Kiba and his stinking mongrel. I won’t ever complain again. You deserve to be popular, you deserve people around you who know how amazing you are. I’ll stop being selfish and trying to keep you to myself.’ Sasuke waited but Naruto’s eyes remained closed and he didn’t say anything. Tentatively he picked him up in a bridal lift and looked around for the best direction to go in. The whole landscape looked broken as if a bomb had hit it, and the damage was recent, the uprooted trees were covered in green leaves. Sasuke’s heart beat fast, how would he protect his injured lover from something that could cause this much devastation?  
Sasuke gritted his teeth, this wasn’t the time to panic, this was the time to be strong, Naruto needed him.  
He spied a possible path that looked less steep than the surroundings and began to move in that direction. The mere act of walking had never been more difficult. His body hurt with a level of physical pain he’d never experienced before, but he only had to glance down at the man he carried to find his strength.  
‘I’m sorry.’ Sasuke forced himself forward. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have had sex with you. Not just today. But every time you asked. I wish I had given you everything that you asked for all the time.’ He almost tripped and struggled to right himself. When he was a child Olympic coaches had wooed him because of his incredible natural athleticism, but right now it felt as if all the muscles had been ripped out of his body and nothing was left but pain and weakness.  
‘All the minutes, hours, days, I’ve wasted not being with you…I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool.’ His throat hurt as he spoke, the dust and heat of the air dried out his mouth. But, even though he’d always considered himself the exact opposite of talkative, the sound of his own voice somehow comforted him in the midst of this unexplained madness. The words came from somewhere deep inside him, beyond his conscious mind. He only hoped Naruto could hear and understand what he was saying.  
‘I shouldn’t have ever said no to you. You never ask for anything that I can’t easily and happily give to you. I’ve dedicated so much of my energy to my degree and PhD, and it makes no sense now, what do I care about grades and academia, impressing professors? All the time I’ve spent in lecture halls when I could have been sitting listening to you.’  
The nerves in his body screamed at him to collapse onto the ground. He glanced behind him, as he feared he’d hardly travelled any distance, and looking forward he had no idea what he was journeying towards. But giving up was not an option. Whatever was going on, wherever they were and however they ended up here, he would get Naruto to a hospital.  
Naruto coughed faintly, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.  
‘Oh Naruto, my Naruto, hold on, it’s going to be Okay.’ Sasuke pushed his body harder, walking faster than his aching flesh told him was possible. ‘We’ll get through this weirdness, just like we get through everything: together. And I promise you, I’m going to be the man you deserve. You can have as many parties as you like. We can spend all our money on VIP tickets to any pop concert you want, I won’t wear ear plugs or complain again. I’ll watch every episode of that pony cartoon thing, and agree with all the things you say about it being an important story celebrating friendship. I’m so sorry about that time I refused to go to London for that meet and greet with the comic book author you liked. Whoever you want to see, wherever you want to go, I’ll take you. Those things I said about Disneyworld being a tacky, commercial hell, forget them, please forget them. Anywhere with you is heaven. And I’m always so happy when I’m with you, you know that, don’t you, even when I’m grumbling, I’m so happy to be by your side. I can change, and be whoever you want me to be.’

‘You’re who I want,’ Naruto murmured. ‘Exactly as you are.’

‘Naruto!’ Sasuke covered his face in kisses, but Naruto gave a small groan and Sasuke resisted touching him further. ‘Just hold on. I’m looking after you. And when we get home I’ll do that thing you want, no arguments, I’ll dress up as the elf one for you, Captain Spock and you can…’

‘Just Spock. It’s Captain James T Kirk, you know this! How comes you can memorise all those complex equations straight off, but after all the times I’ve told you, you still don’t remember basic names!’ It was the closest Naruto had been to Naruto since this madness began.

‘You know I know the Star Trek films, your favourite is the one with the teddy bear things. And I remember that the little teddies aren’t related to the big teddy bear with the crossbow. See, I do pay attention and listen to you.’ Sasuke paused, Naruto should be launching into a long diatribe covering the whole history of Ewoks and Wookies, the profound differences between Star Wars and Star Trek, and ending with a very detailed account of why roleplaying Spock and Kirk would be the sexiest thing that ever happened in the history of the universe. Instead he lay limp in Sasuke’s arms, the few words he’d spoken seemed to have drained any strength he had left.  
Tears stung Sasuke’s eyes. ‘Now I’ve got no choice but to lug you to safety, because there is no way I am going to accept your last words to me being about Star Trek. You hear me, idiot? Those are not your last words! You’re going to hold on, get better and wake up and tell me how much you love me.’  
Sasuke marched on, with every step he made Naruto a new promise.  
‘You can have a Tardis wedding cake.’  
‘We can spend every day of our honeymoon in Harry Potter world.’  
‘I’ll cook you ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.’  
‘We can spend our weekends helping at the fox sanctuary.’  
‘Our evenings will be filled watching all the films and telly series that you love.’  
‘You can always choose what music we listen to.’  
‘Whenever, wherever, however, you want me, I’m yours.’ Tears were streaming down Sasuke’s face but he barely noticed them. He burnt with an anger that he’d never felt before, as much as he loved Naruto he now hated himself. He had such a fun loving joyous boyfriend, why had he not responded to him and given him more happiness? He believed with every part of his soul that he and Naruto would be together forever, and instead of celebrating that miracle every minute of every day, he had taken all that beauty for granted and deferred so many things. Who knew forever could be so short? All those occasions, and there were so many of them scarring deep into Sasuke’s conscience, that Naruto had reached out for loving and Sasuke had refused him because there was something else he considered more important to do. If he let him, Naruto would start and finish every day pleasuring Sasuke. Why hadn’t he let him? He thought he was the sensible one, but what was sensible about wasting mornings cleaning, insisting that punctuality was more important than an extra few minutes cuddling in bed, telling his lover that they had more sex than anyone else they knew as if there was a limit on it, when he had somehow got lucky enough to find a partner whose biggest desire and turn on was making Sasuke happy?

‘Don’t move!’  
‘What have you done to Naruto, you murderer!’  
‘Sasuke, leave Naruto with us and walk away.’  
‘I promised Naruto I wouldn’t fight you, but if you give me no choice I will.’

The four voices spoke at the same time and blurred together as if it was only one person. Sasuke looked up, blinking away his tears. Standing ahead of him, on higher ground, were figures that he recognised as Sakura, Rock Lee, Sai, and Itachi’s close friend, who had been Sasuke’s tutor and confidante, Kakashi. They all looked slightly different from normal, and he could think of no reason why Kakashi would be with three people he’d never met before, or why Sakura and Rock Lee would be willingly standing with Sai (maybe, hopefully, Sasuke had misread him and been too overprotective of Naruto in his judgement of him), but all that could be explained later. All that mattered was that there were people here who would do everything they could to help Naruto.  
Sasuke began to rush forward, his body pumping with new adrenaline at this sudden sight of aid.  
But all four of them leaped back, their faces pictures of fear.  
Sasuke stopped and stood stock still. Things weren’t right, he didn’t understand what was happening, he needed to be careful, he couldn’t be this close to saving Naruto and ruin it with ignorant carelessness.

‘Sasuke, please,’ Kakashi said in a voice that possessed the cool calmness Sasuke remembered from long nights talking about everything apart from whatever subject Kakashi was supposed to be teaching him, but only one of his eyes was visible, and that eye was full of foreboding. ‘We’re only here for Naruto. It’s only us that have tracked him here, there’s no Anbu force, nobody hidden. I’m telling you this honestly, so you are fully aware that we are too weak to even attempt to arrest you. I believe in Naruto and he’s never once stopped believing in you. For the mercy and goodness that he still sees in you, and for the sake of that boy who’s never lost his allegiance to Team 7, please put him down and let us have a chance at healing him. Then leave him alone. Stop taunting him, stop leaving him clues to find you and leading him in to traps, stop giving him hope that he’ll be able to bring you back home. Let him have a chance at a happy life.’ 

Sakura shook her head, there was a fierceness and strength to her that Sasuke had never seen before. ‘It’s no use reasoning with him, we all know what he is, I told you we should have kept Naruto tied up, it’d be better than what’s happened, him chasing after Sasuke again and…’ her voice cracked, but she took a deep breath, folded her arms across her chest and stared with pure defiance at Sasuke. ‘I wish you had died in the fight against Haku and Zabuza, then I could have mourned you as a hero and never met this monster you’ve turned into and Naruto would… Just tell us what you want, make your demands in exchange for Naruto.’

Sasuke could do nothing but stare back at her, the confusion of the situation, his lack of understanding of anything they were saying, made him uncertain about what he needed to do to save his fiancé. 

‘There’s nothing Sasuke wants from us,’ Sai said in an emotionless voice. ‘We have no trade left. He’ll only give Naruto to us if it amuses him for us to heal him so he can lure him again and torture him again.’

‘That’s not true.’ Sasuke finally found his voice. ‘I love Naruto, you all know I love Naruto, tell me what I need to do to save him and I’ll do it.’

The four people looked at him with open suspicion.  
Sasuke tentatively tried a step forward, all of them took three steps back.

Then Rock Lee reversed his movements and strode forward with a confident that was only belied by the shaking of his hands. ‘If Naruto trusted you, I will trust you. If you love Naruto and regret what you’ve done to him, put him down and let us take him away.’

Sasuke’s heart beat fast, he felt like he might start crying again, but he reminded himself he was Itachi’s little brother and he kept his face blank. Why did they want to take Naruto away from him? This had to be a nightmare, some twisted test his unconsciousness was putting him through, his sleeping mind showing him in vivid painful strokes how he needed to give his fiancé more attention and tenderness.  
‘I won’t leave Naruto alone. He needs me.’

Kakashi sighed. ‘I can’t pretend to understand whatever game you’re playing. You know how much we all value Naruto so there is no point in playing, just name your price. You once wanted my eye, you can have it, I won’t fight you, if you’ll let Sakura, Sai and Rock Lee take Naruto far away from here.’  
Sasuke had turned to Kakashi for advice on so many occasions, he was the one who had reassured him to ignore the expensive psychologist Itachi sent him to, that his dependency and attachment to Naruto wasn’t some unhealthy obsession to distract from the tragedy of his childhood, but a real love that only a few people were ever blessed enough to experience. Not that he would ever have given up on Naruto for his own sake, but he’d been scared that the psychologist’s diagnosis was true and that he wouldn’t be the best lover for Naruto to have. But now Kakashi was telling him to walk away from Naruto to let other people care for him, what did it mean?

‘You’re a fragment of my imagination. You’re a subconscious exploration of my attachment to my fiancé, some sort of metaphor for my deeply buried doubts that Naruto deserves someone better than me. But I’m never going to let go of him. He’s mine and he’ll always be mine.’

The last word was barely pronounced before a massive sword appeared from nowhere and pierced Rock Lee’s stomach, then the sword disappeared into a snake which disappeared into the mouth of one of the most disturbing looking people Sasuke had ever seen. The man had lank, long greasy hair, reptilian eyes and the smile of a psychopath. Standing beside him was someone wearing glasses that reflected the light and hid his expression, but still Sasuke felt that he was being gazed upon with hatred in its purest and most abhorrent form.

What is my mind doing to me? Sasuke desperately thought.

The people who looked familiar grabbed Rock Lee and flew off on a bird that Sai drew. The last thing Sasuke heard was Sakura screaming out a curse between wails of extreme devastation.

He was left alone with his dying fiancé and the two newcomers.  
Had he failed his own test? Was he supposed to have given Naruto to Sakura? Was that the real proof of love, the ability to let go of the person you knew you couldn’t live without? If he was so certain that this was a dream, why wasn’t it simple to put this imagined Naruto down and wake up and give all his love and attention to the real Naruto curled up right now in bed with him? Sasuke had always had a firm control of his dreams, it was Naruto who was haunted in the dark of the night by the horrors of life that he kept covered by his bright demeanour.  
Unconsciously Sasuke pulled Naruto a little tighter against his chest, consciously he tried to relax his tensed muscles and faced the two men with a cool exterior. If there was any consistency in this dream, and if anyone was going to have a consistent dream that obeyed set rules it would be him, in this imagined world he was powerful enough that four people who could fly off on an ink bird were terrified of him. One of these new men could turn his tongue into a sword-snake and the other one wasn’t making much effort to disguise the fact he despised him, but neither of them were showing any signs of aggression towards him. In fact, in different ways, they appeared as wary of him as the other four had been.

‘What have you been up to, Sasuke kun?’ the snake man said in a liquid voice. ‘I hope you will not be angry at Kabuto and me for coming to find you, but you’ve sent Karin into complete panic as you’ve somehow made your chakra signal completely disappear and that of the nine-tailed brat’s too. You never cease to interest and amuse me. I’m looking forward to the day you finally decide to share your secrets with me.’ The last line was spoken in the same slithering voice, but some nuance changed to make it carry just a hint of a threat.

‘We were worried your fondness for your favourite toy might have become a fatal weakness.' The one called Kabuto pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled in a manner that openly communicated the hope that Sasuke had been killed. ‘We heard you telling the Konoha scum that he was yours. You sounded quite possessive of him, even I believed you truly cared for him.’

The snake man smiled indulgently at Kabuto. ‘You know more than anyone how much Sasuke enjoys his games.’ 

Kabuto’s face flushed and he stared at the ground.

Sasuke was willing this conversation to end, their presence was making him think the expression about skin crawling was becoming a real thing in his body. Why couldn’t he gain control of this dream, make these two monsters disappear and Naruto be well again? Or even better, just wake up and kiss his real lover?

‘Will you tell us what you mean to do with him?’ the snake man asked in a voice filled with curiosity, but Sasuke was pleased also to hear a note of fear that he might be overstepping boundaries. If either of these creatures realised he had no power to hurt them, he knew he was dead, and even more unthinkable, so was Naruto. And instinct told him it wouldn’t be a quick death either.  
The plot of some horror film Naruto had flicked on the telly late at night flashed into his mind, something about how if you died in a dream you died in real life. Or was it that the creatures from your nightmares came into reality? Sasuke had no idea why he’d thought of it now. Except for the fact it matched the guilt he’d been feeling this whole dream, he insisted on keeping the channel on the horror film even though Naruto hated horror. Or rather because he got scared of horror. He loved the way the blonde snuggled into him, how protective and strong he felt with his arms around his lover, and it always led to intense sex.  
When he woke up he was going to have to phone his brother and very humbly ask him to find him a new psychologist, what sort of man regularly refused blow jobs from his incredibly ardent partner, but when the opportunity arose, was happy to use a cheap trick to manipulate his way to comfort loving?

‘I didn’t expect you to tell us,’ the snake man said, ‘Forgive me for asking. But as we are here, is there anything you want us to do? It would be amusing to chase down Kakashi after all this time. I only wounded the boy in the green suit, I admit I’ve a soft spot for him, but I will kill them all, if that is what you want?’

Sasuke stared hard at the two men, if he was interpreting this situation correctly, he was, at least at some level, able to tell them what to do. He definitely needed to phone Itachi, why had his mind created a world where Naruto’s friends were terrified of him and these two people would murder at his command?

‘Please, can you heal Naruto?’

Snake man and Kabuto gazed at him, but neither moved.  
‘I want my toy mended. Now.’ Something twisted deep in Sasuke at using these words, but he knew they were the right ones.

Kabuto came towards him and Sasuke fought the urge to run in the opposite direction. Kabuto raised his hands above the blonde’s body and a strange glowing light appeared. ‘It would help if you told me what you’ve done to him this time. It’s almost as if he’s nothing more than an ordinary kid.’

‘Don’t question me. Heal him. If it is within your capabilities.’ Sasuke’s voice didn’t sound like his own, it was hard, distant, the voice of a man who was always obeyed, otherwise people died.

Kabuto didn’t look at him or speak again, he focused entirely on Naruto, the glowing light moved and shimmered until Naruto’s eyes flicked open and remained open.

‘Sas? Where am I? What happened? Who’s the scary looking dude with glasses? Why is his hand glowing?’ Naruto’s voice got stronger with each word.

Sasuke yearned to cover his lover with kisses, but instead he retained his composure and kept his gaze on the strangers. ‘Both of you leave. I’ve got no use for you and don’t want to see you.’

Kabuto looked at snake man who gave a small nod.  
‘We’ll be waiting at the usual base for you, Sasuke kun. Try not to hurt your toy too much if you want Kabuto to keep mending it, remember there are limits to even the most powerful ninja’s abilities.’  
Then both men vanished in a blurred flash.

‘Sasuke? Are you Okay?’

Sasuke dropped to his knees, his arms cradling his lover against his chest. ‘I’ve been so scared and missed you so much. When we arrived here, do you remember, I was running towards you? There was so much hate inside me. It was as if someone else had taken over my emotions, or I’d taken over someone else’s emotions. I still loved you so much, but the love was burning me up, it was as if I couldn’t cope with it, and it made me want to kill you.’

‘What are you talking about? You’re my man, my best friend, my first real friend, my only real lover, you’re my one and only. I know you’d never hurt me just like I know there’s a sun and moon in the sky. It’s not something I ever have to think about, it just is.’ Naruto grinned a sheepish grin. ‘Or did you notice that I got a bit peckish and might have maybe nibbled just a tiny bit on some of the sushi you made for the party? I don’t think that would make even you angry enough to kill me though, would it?’

‘How much exactly did you eat? You know how long it takes me to prepare all that food, about ten levels of your new game.’ Sasuke smiled, the familiar bickering felt so easy and natural that it could almost make him think everything was normal.

‘Hey, have you forgotten already, you promised me I could eat all the food I wanted, and that you would never say no to me again and that I could have a Tardis wedding cake and you didn’t mention trampolines at our wedding, but I’m kinda taken that as a given amongst all the other things you said I could have.’

Sasuke caressed his hand through Naruto’s hair. ‘You heard all that? I was scared you weren’t with me.’

‘Idiot, you don’t get rid of me that easy. And I didn’t hear, I more like felt it inside me, if that makes any sense? That you were with me looking after me and you were never going to let go of me.’

Sasuke pressed his head against his fiancé’s. ‘Naruto, I’m still scared, I’m scared that this isn’t a dream. That we’re stuck in some strange world with terrifying people and I won’t be able to protect you.’

‘Don’t say that, bastard, we’ll always protect each other, that’s what we do. Never doubt the power of us together. You rescued me, you gave me hope, you got me through a degree at Oxford. You make me happy, you make me feel strong, you make love seem like the most special and most normal thing. You’re the most powerful force in the world to me. And if this place doesn’t sell Spock and Captain Kirk uniforms there is nothing anywhere that’ll stop us getting home, as I so heard that promise, and that is so definitely going to happen.’ Naruto reached a hand down and stroked it playfully over Sasuke’s groin.

Sasuke didn’t resist any longer, he pulled his lover against him and gave him a kiss that contained all his passion and love. When they broke apart to breathe, Sasuke noticed with a frown that Naruto was still so pale and the bruises on his body were colouring a deep purple. He’d been so relieved that his fiancé was conscious again that he’d ignored the remaining damage.

‘Don’t look at me like that, I’m Okay, I’m tough, yaknow how fast I heal. So when you fuck me, which you will be doing in a minute by the way because you said you’d never say no to me again, don’t you dare go easy on me.’

Sasuke was on the verge of protesting for a million different, totally logical reasons, why sex was the last thing they should be doing, but he still felt the lurking self-hatred of all the missed opportunities with his lover, and whether this was dream or real, he never wanted to miss another opportunity to show Naruto how much he cared for him. Without a word he placed Naruto down on the dusty ground and began gently kissing and caressing his neck and shoulders. Even as he enjoyed the feel of his lover’s skin though, he hoped with every fibre of his aching being that any moment now, he would wake up in bed with Naruto sleeping in his arms and he could let all this fade away in the haze of a forgotten dream.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some hotness in this chapter coupled with some unavoidable Sasuke angst.
> 
> I hope you're enjoying how the story is coming together, as ever I'm very grateful for everyone reading this with extra special thanks to anyone who has commented.

Sasuke gently traced his fingers over the curve of Naruto’s buttocks. The blonde moaned softly, then returned to his louder snores. Sasuke had been the one who got tired out by their activities, Naruto could almost go constantly, with barely a break for breath before he started again, but it was Naruto who had finally fallen into a deep sleep and Sasuke who remained awake. He was partly scared to close his eyes and let go of this moment, and he was partly too excited to be able to rest. 

Somehow over the whole course of their fondling and kissing they hadn’t ever made it the couple of feet to the bed, and while waiting for Sasuke to ‘refuel’, Naruto had snuggled up on the brunette’s chest and after a few minutes had started snoring. Sasuke meant to lift the blonde up onto the more comfortable mattress, but the sight and feel of Naruto so peaceful on top of him had been too precious to disturb. It was amazing how tightly he’d manage to curl his body into a tiny ball enabling him to lie entirely on the raven. He’d been unbelievably cute. But even now later, after a bit of tossing around, and stretched out across Sasuke, Naruto was still unbelievably cute. Sasuke craned his head to look at Naruto’s perfect buttocks, gazing at the crevice where they met, his breath catching in his throat at the fact that he would in all probability at some point in the next few hours he’d be entering the blonde’s toned body. He wondered how Naruto would react to waking up with Sasuke licking his most private parts. But he paused in his plans to manoeuvre Naruto into a more orally accessible position,

He remembered younger days watching Naruto sleep when they were away on missions, waiting to check that Naruto didn’t have any nightmares and waking him and comforting him if he did. With Naruto sprawled across his body once more, it felt like no time had passed, but Sasuke knew it had, and he had no understanding of what had happened in the years in between.   
He didn’t yet have a clear idea of time in this world compared to their own, but he knew it was mere days ago that he had been intent on killing this man who he was currently caressing. That he had been on the verge of dealing a death blow to this man who in a few playful hours had made him happier than anyone else had in his entire life. However, even if it had been years ago, he still wouldn’t be able to comprehend it. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to extinguish the bright light that was Naruto. It didn’t take complete strangers long before they melted under his assault of kindness and understanding, so why had Sasuke who’d known Naruto across years been the one who persisted in tormenting the blonde?  
All the speeches Naruto had given him about the importance of their friendship, how they’d been the only ones who could truly understand each other, that they were forever bonded together, and Sasuke had responded with disdain and violence.   
He had an urge to shake Naruto awake and beg him to reassure him that he was still a good man, that there was a valid reason to forgive him for everything he’d done. He managed to resist by reminding himself that he’d been the one to tell Naruto that they were starting fresh, he wouldn’t be the one to break the moment and pull them back into a reality where they needed to deal with the consequences of Sasuke’s cold and bloody choices.

For a moment he glanced away from Naruto and looked around this bedroom. The juxtaposition of opposing colours, and jumbled mess with careful neatness, had until now seemed like a hideous clash, but he looked with new eyes that saw vibrancy and balance. The Sasuke in this world had got it right, he seemed to have the same personality, there had been suffering in his life, but he’d retained his love for Itachi and gained the love of Naruto. Sasuke gazed back at Naruto, and caressed his fingers over the scars on his cheeks. Nobody doubted that Sasuke was the greatest living ninja, he could do things with ease that others didn’t even have the capacity to dream of. Was it possible for him to make a jutsu where he went back in time and got it right?  
He stroked his hand down Naruto’s body as he pondered the existing jutsus he could weave together and considered how far back he would have to go. What would it be like putting all the knowledge he had now into the child who hadn’t yet seen the hacked up corpses of his parents?  
His fingers reached Naruto’s stomach and began to trace the swirl of the seal, but Naruto flinched away. Something in Sasuke’s being froze. Since arriving in this world his normally perfectly honed senses and intellect had been unrealiable, but in the second of Naruto flinching he understood everything, like all the pieces of a broken mirror suddenly fixing themselves back together. Naruto hadn’t been eating with his usual unstoppable gusto and he was moving differently, the rhythm of his stride and the balance of his body was something Sasuke was so familiar with, why hadn’t he noticed it immediately? Because there had been such a plethora of other information to try and sift through? Or because he hadn’t wanted to?

This time Sasuke did wake Naruto up. He softly moved the blonde’s shoulder, and whispered, the words he’d used when they first arrived, the ones he’d spoken so many times when they were young to ease Naruto out of the darkness of his nightmares. ‘You’re safe, Naruto, you’re not alone, I’m here, your friend, wake up and we’ll face a bright beautiful day together.’

Naruto’s shining blue eyes flickered open, on seeing Sasuke he smiled shyly. ‘I was scared it was a dream, but you’re still here.’ His hand reached out and ran over Sasuke’s chest. ‘And you’re still all naked, yaknow.’

‘Yes, I know I’m naked, but I need…’

‘And I’m all naked too.’ Naruto rubbed a sleepy hand over his groin.

Sasuke couldn’t prevent a small moan escaping. Somehow seeing Naruto touch himself so casually made Sasuke as hard as he had been when Naruto kissed him.

Naruto immediately became more alert, his smile widened and the lazy hand on his cock moved with more purpose. ‘You like this? Watching me?’  
Sasuke needed to close his eyes and take several deep breaths before he could summon enough willpower to stand up and move away from Naruto. ‘I’ve realised some things, and I need to talk to you about them.’ He opened his eyes, to see Naruto lying seductively on the floor, grinning happily up at Sasuke as he continued to stroke himself. ‘I’m serious, dobe! Stop that!’

Naruto’s smile didn’t falter, but he let his hand fall away from his groin, pulled himself up on his knees and edged closer to the raven, making the few steps Sasuke had put between them disappear. ‘I’ve realised some things too. You’re not only amazingly handsome, you’ve got an incredible ass and an awe-inspiring cock. I don’t want to be a ninja anymore and waste time with all that training. I wanna be your sex slut, yaknow, and spend all my energy pleasing you. I’m serious, teme.’

Sasuke felt the heat in his cheeks. ‘We haven’t even had sex properly yet, you don’t know what you want.’ His voice lacked its customary control as image after image flashed endlessly through his mind of the many ways Naruto could please him.

‘Isn’t that why you woke me up? To have sex properly.’ Naruto gazed unabashedly at Sasuke’s erection. ‘Yaknow I don’t know quite know how it all, yaknow, fits together, but think I’ve proved to you that I really really want you to teach me.’

Sasuke swallowed and wished that Naruto’s waking shyness had lasted a bit longer. But he knew in truth that at the most important level, it didn’t matter what mood Naruto was in, or even what he was doing, from now onwards, Sasuke would always find him irresistible.  
He bit his lip and clenched his fists tightly by his side, searching every ounce of his being for the self-control he desperately needed. ‘Naruto, you’re in pain, your stomach is hurting. Its…’

A frown flitted over the blonde’s face, but disappeared into an even brighter beam. ‘You’re worried about hurting me? That’s why you’re holding back? And you noticed I was hurting even though I didn’t say anything because you know me so well?’ Naruto laughed happily. ‘But because you know me so well, you know that even with whatever you’ve done with Kurama, I still heal fast, and I’m tough, so yaknow, no need to be extra gentle with me or anything.’

‘Usuratonkachi.’ Sasuke spoke so softly that Naruto could only hear because his senses were so tuned into the raven. ‘The things I did to you in our world…because you looked fine…I assumed that transporting here had in some way erased the damage, perhaps a time distortion so it never happened, or some change to our physical reality through inhabiting other people’s lives. But I see now that I hurt you so badly that…’

‘You said we weren’t going to talk about you trying to kill me.’ Naruto crossed his arms. ‘And we’re not. It can wait. We have our whole lives to sort these things out, don’t we?’

Sasuke’s lips parted but he couldn’t find his voice.

Naruto obviously took Sasuke’s silence as agreement, he uncrossed his arms and starting at Sasuke’s ankles ran his hands all the way up to the top of his thighs. When Sasuke still didn’t speak, Naruto dipped his head forward and took Sasuke’s sex in his mouth and circled his tongue around.

Sasuke’s legs buckled beneath him, his body was incapable of supporting itself at the same time as receiving such intense pleasure. ‘How are you doing this to me?’ he gasped.

Naruto giggled as he pushed Sasuke back onto the floor and darted kisses over his chest and nipples. ‘I wish I’d discovered this years ago, it’s much more effective and fun than trying to fight you.’ Naruto’s mouth journeyed down to Sasuke’s groin and he teased around Sasuke’s hardness.

Sasuke lay inert unable to do anything but accept the desire that pulsed through him. The small part of his brain that was still able to form thoughts, told him he didn’t deserve this, but that knowledge only increased his yearning for the warmth of Naruto’s body. He shouldn’t be allowing any of this to happen without fully informing Naruto of the facts of their situation. But he was. He was the bad guy, he did bad things. The idea floated through him that he could lie, and Naruto would believe him if he said there was no way back, perhaps convince him that this was where they belonged now, that this world was theirs, with no more fighting or pain. Subconsciously his head turned and he saw the overflowing pin board filled with photos and memorabilia of the happy version of them who did belong in this world. That could be him and his Naruto. Had this world’s Sasuke lain on the floor and enjoyed the attention of an amazingly enthusiastic, beloved blonde? For some reason the thought made Sasuke’s heart ache.  
Then all thought went as Naruto plunged his mouth down on Sasuke, taking the brunette’s whole length. Sasuke’s hips bucked up and both his hands gripped the back of Naruto’s head. It was only the fact that Naruto had already made him come several times which prevented him from erupting again.  
‘You’re too good,’ Sasuke panted. ‘Tell me the truth, you have done this to someone else haven’t you?’

Naruto looked up with wide, mildly hurt, eyes. ‘Who else is there but you?’ Then the familiar grin dominated his face. ‘Am I that good at it? Am I better than you?’

Sasuke smiled. ‘You’ll have to be the judge of that. In this area my experience is as limited as yours.’

‘What? Really? How come? I thought you were the sex master of everything?’

‘I fuck people. They pleasure me.’ He sat up and pulled Naruto in for a long lingering kiss, savouring the fact that Naruto’s lips carried his scent. Then with casual ease, he swung Naruto around and lay back down with Naruto’s head back on his cock, and Naruto’s own groin by Sasuke’s face.  
Sasuke took a moment to breathe in Naruto’s sweet aroma before pushing his lips around Naruto. He was gratified by Naruto’s immediate moan which was much louder than his own. He worked his tongue with extra energy, sucking and blowing in a way that he hoped would pleasure the blonde. Naruto seemed incapacitated, writhing on top of Sasuke, moaning and crying out incomprehensible sounds which might have been ‘teme’. Sasuke inwardly glowed that he could have the same effect that his tenacious partner had on him, but then Naruto adjusted himself and was deep-throating Sasuke with an increased speed and new intensity. Sasuke held onto the orgasm that was threatening to shatter through him, with an iron determination that he’d make Naruto come first. He reached his hands around and squeezed Naruto’s firm buttocks, grabbing his hips and thrusting him up and down with a speed that Sasuke was sure even Naruto couldn’t withstand for long.  
But this was Naruto. He matched Sasuke’s quick movements with his own. Sweat dripped off both men as they pushed, probed and explored each other. Sasuke had a moment of triumph when his tongue lapping over Naruto’s cock, tasted the sweetness of the blonde’s pre-cum; but it was the briefest of victories as Naruto did something with his mouth, Sasuke wasn’t even sure what, that made Sasuke’s whole body tremor. He had to pull his face away from Naruto and just concentrate on breathing. Naruto took full advantage of the gap to work on Sasuke with a refreshed energy. His hands seemed to be caressing all of Sasuke’s erogenous zones at the same time, but his mouth remained on Sasuke’s cock, plunging up and down with a speed that was on the very point of ecstasy between pleasure and pain.  
Sasuke couldn’t resist any longer, he came with a force and passion as if it had been years since his last orgasm.  
Sasuke screamed out, ‘Naruto, I love you.’  
Tears filled Naruto’s eyes but didn’t fall. For the longest time, they gazed silently at each other, it felt like day had passed into night and the sun had risen again before Naruto replied.  
‘So you are admitting that I’m better at blow jobs than you?’

They both laughed and fell against each other in what started as a jokey hug and finished as a tender cuddle with Naruto’s head resting on Sasuke’s shoulder and Sasuke gently stroking Naruto’s hair.

‘Is that what you wanted to tell me?’ Naruto asked after a while. In a voice that was incredibly soft by his standards, ‘That you love me?’

Sasuke was aware of every tiny movement in both his own and Naruto’s body. Their hearts were beating in exact rhythm, they were breathing together, their chests rising and falling at the same time. This was a unity that he’d never experienced before, that he couldn’t believe many people ever were blessed enough to experience. And he could hold onto it forever. The universe was telling them this was where they belonged, where they could at last be happy away from the pain of their pasts. There were lives here they could slip into, friends, occupations, studying instead of killing, they could get married and be happy. He glanced up at the photos on the wall, he could be that man who loved and lived for his Naruto.

He squeezed his arm around the blonde. ‘I do love you, I think you’ve known that for far longer than I have.’

Naruto snuggled against Sasuke’s chest. ‘Well, I’m cleverer than you like that, yaknow.’ 

‘But that isn’t what I was trying to tell you before.’

‘Oh?’ When Sasuke didn’t speak for a while, Naruto asked again. ‘You’ve got a bit of time before we do more of the sex thing, so you might as well tell me now.’

Sasuke gazed down at his lover and ignored the faces looking out at him from the photos. ‘The truth is Naruto, I don’t think there is any way back to our world.’

Naruto took Sasuke’s hand and kissed it. ‘It’s OK. You sound sad. Guilty. But there’s no need. You don’t have to worry that you couldn’t work out how to get us back, you’ve worked things out better here than I ever could, I’d be squashed under a car without you. And besides if I’m with you everywhere and anywhere is home.’

‘I don’t deserve you, dobe.’ Sasuke pressed his face into Naruto’s hair and tried not to think about anything but his own precious lover.


	15. Chapter 15

Sasuke put the heavy cloak he’d found at the back of the cupboard over Naruto.

Naruto glared at him. There was a definite skill in managing to look both pale and sickly, and red with anger. ‘Stop babying me, I’m fine. You need to look after yourself. I’ve noticed your finger, you know? It’s broken, isn’t it? Splinter it up or something, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with a broken finger, but I do know that you need to stop coddling me and start sorting yourself out.’

Sasuke gave only the briefest glance at his hand, before continuing to tuck the cloak around Naruto lying on the lumpy sofa. ‘It was kind of that old couple to let us use their hut tonight.’

Naruto snorted. ‘Sas, you’re the sensible, logical one out of the two of us, so why are you insisting on pretending things are normal when they’re totally crazy? That couple didn’t leave their home to us out of kindness. I mean, they ran away so fast, even though it looked like they could barely walk, and it was because, like everyone else we’ve met, which is the grand total of eight people by the way, they’re absolutely terrified of you.’ 

Sasuke looked around the one room that seemed to contain everything the old couple owned in the world. There was a bed at one side, pressed against the bare wooden wall, but in silent mutual agreement Naruto and Sasuke had decided to camp out on the sofa. It wasn’t much of a limit, seeing they were taking the shelter and scavenging through the food, but it was a limit. They wouldn’t enter the intimacy of someone else’s bed. Especially when, as Naruto loudly pointed out, those someones looked like they had given up their home out of fear rather than compassion. When he knocked on their door, all he had been trying to ask was to borrow their phone. Unlike Naruto, he didn’t like going to Itachi every time some little thing went wrong, but this was a whole different level of wrongness, and he had no care for his pride when Naruto’s well-being was on the line.  
But he had no chance to make his request, on opening their door the woman had fallen to her knees and started screaming, and the man had quickly rushed to her side and pulled her out into the forest all the time pleading and begging Sasuke not to hurt him, saying he could take anything he liked, just please if he was going to kill them, give them a quick death. Sasuke hoped they were all right alone out there at night, but he didn’t think of them for long as Naruto more than took all his concern and care.  
Sasuke searched the house several times, he wasn’t surprised that people who chose to live in the middle of nowhere didn’t have the latest in smartphone technology, but he was certain that there should be some sort of landline somewhere. He wanted his brother so much right now, more than he could willingly admit to himself. People thought he was smart, he won awards, got noticed in the right places, but he was nothing compared to Itachi, Itachi had complex plans within complex plans within complex plans. Nothing ever ruffled him, and he always made everything work. If he was here, Naruto would have been in a place of safety hours ago, and he would have worked out precisely why they were here and how they would get home.  
Sasuke looked around again, as if some answer to their problems would have appeared in the minutes since his last exploration.

‘Baby, come back here and talk to me.’ Naruto stretched his arms out.

‘Hnnnn.’ Sasuke opened a cardboard and found exactly the same smell of old lived in clothes that had been there last time. He moved onto a drawer packed with chopsticks, unsure what he hoped to discover except that this couple were stockpiling their eating utensils ready for the next apocolypse.

‘Don’t be like that, I know I just told you to leave me alone, but yaknow that what I’m really saying is that I’m worried about you. Talk to me. It’s not all on you, you don’t have to be the strong, brave one on your own trying to protect me, you and me are partners, we work things out together. We share everything, all our thoughts and…’

‘OK. OK.’ He knew from experience that once Naruto got in the flow of a speech it was hard to resist him and next to impossible to stop him. The last thing Sasuke wanted was for his lover to tire himself up having to convince Sasuke to talk to him, when all Sasuke really wanted anyway was to talk to him. ‘Naruto, if this is a nightmare, why haven’t I woken up yet? Why does time pass so slowly? Why does everything seem so real? And if this isn’t a nightmare, how did we go to bed and wake up here? Why is there a man who can turn his tongue into a really long sword? Why does it feel like we’re always being watched? I swear I saw a floating eyeball and a face in a tree. Why do the normal looking people run away from me as if I am their nightmare?’

‘Magic,’ Naruto said, his face entirely serious. ‘Remember, like Sherlock Holmes said “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth”. Someone with a lot of power is interested in us and has transported us to another dimension so we can learn to be superheroes or something like that anyway, yaknow?’

Sasuke stared blankly at his fiancé. ‘I don’t know where to start with that. Maybe, Holmes is a fictional character, who solves fictional crimes. Or perhaps, with the fact, that you’re not eliminating the impossible, you’re taking the impossible as the basis for your theory. And I have to ask, why do you imagine out of the billions of people in the world, would we be the two to be picked to become superheroes?’

Naruto crossed his arms. ‘Why wouldn’t it be us? You’re awesome, in the absolute original awe inspiring amazingness meaning of that word, and I’m pretty cool too. And who says it’s just us? There could be lots of people going through the same thing as us. And when I say magic, I mean it just seems like magic to us, but think if you could travel in time and show people a mobile phone, they’d think you had secret witch power, not that you’d just gone to a standard shop, flirted for way longer than necessary with the assistant to get a deal…’

‘Hey.’ Sasuke raised his hands up. ‘I can’t believe that we’ve landed in some sort of hell, and you’re still complaining about me having a perfectly reasonable conversation, which happened weeks ago, about tariffs with a shop assistant.’

Naruto stuck out his bottom lip in a pout that Sasuke wanted to be annoyed at but couldn’t help finding adorable. ‘Hey right back at ya. I was just taking a random example to prove my point, it’s not my fault that you’re oversensitive, or maybe overguilty, and think I’m talking about you being overfriendly with another man.’

Sasuke ruffled his hand through Naruto’s hair. ‘I’m supposed to be the jealous one. But you know, it turns me on you getting possessive and wanting all my attention to yourself.’

‘I know.’ Naruto grinned widely. ‘I noticed.’

Sasuke ran a finger over Naruto’s lips. ‘We’re bruised, battered, and completely ignorant of what’s happening to us, and you’re trying to get me to want you by pretending to be jealous?’

‘You look like you need to relax.’ Naruto flicked his tongue over Sasuke’s finger. ‘And whatever’s going on is total madness, we have no idea what’s ahead of us, so we should have fun whenever we can.’

Sasuke took Naruto’s own hand to his mouth and sucked on his thumb. ‘You don’t have to use tricks with me, being in the middle of Crazy Town just makes me want to hold you closer than ever and appreciate you better than I ever have before.’ Still holding Naruto’s hand in his, he stood up and with his free hand undid the belt and fly of his jeans.  
Naruto reached forward and pulled out Sasuke’s already hardening cock. ‘Maybe it’ll help you think through things better, if I can ease the tension in your body.’ He swiftly manoeuvred himself so he was leaning into Sasuke’s crotch and taking all of Sasuke in his mouth.

Sasuke moaned softly. Naruto purred as he sucked. Sasuke felt like the best version of himself whenever the blonde touched him. His mind went blank and he gazed down at his lover. The world became pleasure and beauty. He didn’t restrain himself like he normally did, to last as long as possible, when the orgasm came he allowed it to flow through his body. But after he was spent, he didn’t withdraw from the warmth of Naruto’s mouth. Naruto’s eyes sparkled up at him, filled with open gratitude at being able to still taste his man.

‘I know I don’t deserve you, no one in any world or time, could ever be good enough to deserve you, but I’m so happy to have got this lucky.’ Sasuke didn’t take his gaze away from his lover’s. ‘I do feel calmer now. I can think about things better, I see we’re somewhere where everyone speaks Japanese, but it is not Japan. Where everyone knows who I am, but I don’t know who they are. Even the faces that looked familiar, Kakashi, Sakura, Sai and Rock Lee, were strangers. There is fear and violence. Things that have no explanation are possible. So I’m going to have to concur with the good sir’s hypothesis that we’ve been transported to a magic land in order to undergo a series of tests and prove ourselves as the newest, most awesome, superheroes.’

Naruto pulled away from Sasuke. ‘Nah, that’s an old ridiculous theory. I’ve already moved on from it. Now, I realise we’ve been abducted by aliens. Crazily handsome aliens, so you better stay by my side and don’t do any of your I’m-too-cool-for-a-probe-nonchalant charm thing, because I know from experience that’ll drive them wild for you.’

Laughing, Sasuke dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Naruto. ‘Even the worse things are an unmissable adventure when I’m with you.’

Sasuke’s laughter turned to a yell. His legs, his whole lower body were being crushed. He looked down to see billions of grains of sand swirling around him.

‘Let go of Naruto and I’ll give you a quick death.’

The room that had been empty a second ago was now crowded with people in dark clothing and masks. And Gaara. Not the Gaara he knew. This man had the kanji for love tattooed on his forehead, but his piercing, pupiless, eyes were full of hate and murder. 

‘This is my only offer, Sasuke. Let Naruto go free and I’ll make it quick.’

The sand was swirling higher up his body, slashing through his clothes as if they were made of tissue paper, scraping across his skin like a million tiny blades.

‘Can you keep Naruto safe from the sword tongue… and the magic… and the aliens… and the nightmares? He gets bad nightmares.’ It took Sasuke’s whole strength to pronounce the words as pain and agony seared through him.

For the briefest moment of ecstasy the sand stopped moving. Gaara frowned, then his face was blank again and the sand continued it assault on Sasuke’s body. ‘Naruto is always protected with me. You’re not. I’ve stayed away from you because of my esteem for Naruto and Naruto’s continued dedication to saving you, but it’s been decided that this world will be better for Naruto without you in it.’

Far more painful than the physical attack, Sasuke let go of his lover, and then with the last of his strength fell away from him. He prayed it was the right choice. It wasn’t the choice that any part of him wanted to make, but if it gave Naruto a chance it was the only thing he could do.

Before he was totally encapsulated, Sasuke saw Naruto leaping forward, battling against the monstrous sand to reach him.

No, Naruto, please stay safe, stay safe for me.   
Sasuke was no longer capable of saying the words aloud. Time moved in slow motion, he was aware of nothing but the happiness that love had given him, and the sadness that he wouldn’t be able to give Naruto his dream wedding. Then everything went black.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this, I really appreciate you all for giving my little story your precious time.  
> I'm posting this on the 4th July, so I hope anyone who is celebrating is having an amazing time, and everyone else, I hope there is much awesomeness in your lives too x
> 
> This was an emotional chapter for me to write and I really hope that comes across to you reading it. Right now I plan this to be the last chapter with just an epilogue coming soon. As always I welcome any feedback you have time to leave and am just generally grateful at being able to share this with you.

Sasuke was finding learning what the Sasuke in this world could do easily, more difficult than he liked to admit. He wasn’t certain if he fully understood even the title of the PhD thesis he was working on yet. Everything was difficult in this world though, everything that was, that didn’t involve him naked in bed with Naruto. Or on the kitchen floor. In the shower. On the table. The stairs. The garden bench. Basically anywhere with Naruto minus clothes. 

At Sasuke’s insistence they were taking things slowly. Slowly was supposed to mean that they stepped back from each other, acted as if they were beginning as people who had only just met and were becoming gradually acquainted and used to each other. In reality, slowly meant that the only reason they got dressed was to have the pleasure of ripping clothes off; that they kissed and explored and licked and sucked and did all the things they wanted to do apart from full-on penetration. Then in lazy exhaustion they lay in each other arms, sometimes talking, sometimes silently tracing messages on each other, always sharing memories. After being alone for so long, the sheer joy of having a friend often made Sasuke cry, it was a strange thing to shed more tears in this the happiest time of his life than he had ever done in grief or pain.

Naruto treated Sasuke’s ‘no’ to sex as a challenge to be conquered in his own inimitable style. He acted as if he had to prove himself as a lover, which in a way did help Sasuke to keep to his resolve, (ignoring the fact that by getting naked with Naruto he was already breaking his initial inner vow to keep things relatively chaste and above the waist while they were ‘dating’), Naruto had such natural skill with his hands and mouth, that Sasuke came long before his lust to be inside his man overcame him. And surprisingly, despite his ardour for everything else, Naruto became very shy at the idea of taking Sasuke. An image of sweat-drenched Naruto with Sasuke’s come splattered over his face and chest, actually blushing when Sasuke hinted at the idea that Sasuke could spread for him, remained in Sasuke’s mind, and, whatever else was going on, never failed to make Sasuke harden.  
The truth, of course, was that Sasuke was resisting completely taking Naruto, because he was the one who had something to prove, he was the one who had to earn the right to take his lover’s virginity. Considering their history, and the things that Sasuke was failing to resist, it felt like such a small thing and almost ridiculous. If his new purpose in life was to make Naruto happy, why was he denying him this? Naruto had made it clear, and the loud-mouthed, loquacious, ninja definitely knew how to make things clear, that he wanted the full sexual experience with Sasuke, And thinking at his calmest and most logical, Sasuke was fully aware that there was nothing he could do to ‘earn’ Naruto. Their past that bound them together, also made Sasuke want to scratch his eyes out with despair. It wasn’t thinking about the slaughter, or even allying himself with an enemy of Naruto’s beloved village, it was the simple and irredeemable fact that Naruto had been a lonely kid who trusted him and he’d abandoned him.  
In that first fight after he’d left to the last one before they appeared here, Naruto never faltered in believing in Sasuke and their friendship. And over the years, how had he responded? By saying their friendship didn’t matter, that it didn’t exist, or even that he was going to kill Naruto because of their supposed bond! He put his head in his hands remembering how he’d told Naruto that he didn’t understand loss because his parents had died before he knew them. How could he have said that when Naruto was the only person he’d ever met who did understand him? It wasn’t his way to show it openly in front of others, but he’d looked into Naruto’s eyes and he hadn’t felt alone anymore. So soon after being teamed with him, there was no need for conscious thought, his whole body, his whole being, would willingly die just to allow Naruto’s light to shine a little bit longer in this sad world. 

Sasuke tried to refocus on the present, on the notes he was trying to memorise so he could live the life of this other Sasuke and remain for the rest of his days in this world without shinobi and keep his Naruto safe. It was rare that Naruto and him were apart, but Kiba and his mongrel had come to visit so he had taken the opportunity to leave them alone and to concentrate on studying. He was too far behind on the schedule he’d made for himself. He managed to get through three pages before his mind drifted again. This time it wasn’t his fault though. This world’s Sasuke had interrupted making his neat and meticulous notes to doodle. Written in flawlessly calligraphed Japanese was the name Uchiha Sasuke, underneath was Uzumaki Sasuke, then Uchiha Uzumaki Sasuke and finally Uchiha Naruto with a heart drawn round it. In English he’d written Mr and Mr Sasuke and Naruto Uchiha, but the rest of the page was filled with various practice signatures of ‘Sasuke Uzumaki’ and ‘Sasuke Uzumaki Uchiha’.  
Sasuke traced his fingers over the letters, and it wasn’t imagination, he could feel the emotions of the man who formed them, the love was so bright and illuminating, there was no space for sorrow in his soul. There were the niggles and annoyances of everyday living with Naruto, but they weren’t a negative, they were an essential part of the overwhelming love that this Sasuke felt for his fiancé. He saw his life ahead entwined with the most perfect man and could barely believe how lucky he was. Except he did believe, there was not a single doubt in his being that him and Naruto would always be together and would always be happy.

‘Hey!’ Naruto spun Sasuke’s chair around and jumped onto his lap. ‘Did you miss me? I know you did. Kiba’s left, but he’s going to come again tomorrow, so if you want to have fun with me start now, and I know you do want to have fun with me so let’s get naked quick. Hey?’ His voice softened and he caressed Sasuke’s face. ‘What’s wrong? Are the equations or whatever you’re studying that difficult? It doesn’t matter if you can’t get them, yaknow, we can make our own lives here, we don’t have to follow what’s laid down for us. You forgot that my ninja way involves making up new rules, so I think I can be the same even if I’m not a ninja anymore. It’s strange saying that out loud, isn’t it? Not being a ninja. Is that what’s making you sad, the thought we’re not going to get home again, or be the people we were before ever again?’

Sasuke took Naruto’s hand in his own and gave it a small kiss. ‘It makes me happy to think of a life where I was never a ninja and never had the power to hurt people.’

‘You protected people too, don’t forget that, Sasuke, before the whole revenge thing took over, you helped lots of people. Including me. That’s who you really are, I know that and I’ve always known it. You’re a good person.’

‘I’m really not.’ He put his hands on Naruto’s waist and gently pushed the blonde off his lap. ‘You’re a good person and you wouldn’t ever come close to doing any of the things I’ve casually done.’ He stood up and put his hand over Naruto’s mouth. ‘Don’t argue with me, or this will be too difficult and I’ll fail and end up kissing you instead of saying what I need to say.’ He dropped his hand to his waist. ‘Are you ready to listen quietly and not interrupt?’

Naruto clenched his fists by his side. ‘No, I’m not. Please you listen to me for once.’ Naruto’s face possessed an intensity and a maturity that was new, as if he’d suddenly aged ten years. ‘I want to be the person you think I am, and I think most of the time I am, but since you and I, well, yaknow, I haven’t been good.’

Sasuke sighed. ‘What are you talking about now, dobe? Don’t tell me you feel guilty about the things we’re doing together?’

‘Of course I do! I always told everyone I was your best friend wanting to bring you home and help you, but I was lying to myself, I was in love with you. I am in love with you. Everything I did…’

Sasuke squeezed Naruto’s arm. ‘We’ve talked about this already, how we denied our feelings for so long, we don’t need to say it again. Not right now anyway. I need to tell you…’

‘You’re still not listening, teme,’ Naruto’s voice almost had a growl to it. ‘This is important. Other people thought that I was some sort of self-sacrificing hero the way I kept trying to find you and enduring all the fights with you. But I wasn’t doing it for you, I chased you down for myself, because I was only half a person without you, because being without you hurt so much more than any physical damage you did to me.’ 

‘I’m so sorry for all the pain I caused you.’

Naruto continued speaking over Sasuke, ‘There have been so many kind people in my life over the years, but I’ve never been able to love anyone like I love you. But it’s a selfish love, Sasuke. I know what you’re going to tell me. I know why you’re sad. You’ve been reading through the notes of the Sasuke from this world and it’s made you guilty. When you told me that you didn’t know how to get back home you lied to me.’

Sasuke gasped and his eyes widened, he had been certain that Naruto believed him.  
‘And I accepted you saying that and didn’t ask any questions because I want so much to be in this world with you and be your fiancé. At first when you told me, I was really happy because it showed me you wanted the same thing, you and me together in peace forever. And I think about going back and how ridiculous my dream was that you could come back to Konoha and everyone would accept you, and you and me could be together. What we can have as a couple here we could never have in our own world.’ Naruto took a deep breath. ‘Then I started paying attention to things, like how reluctant you are to leave this house, and it’s not that you’re scared of cars like me, you’re not scared of anything. And through your internet thing you’ve learned more about this world than me so you’d be able to work things out real quick. I think it’s because if we explore around here and meet more people and interact with things it’ll get harder to go home.’  
One tear fell down Naruto’s cheek, Sasuke leaned forward and kissed it off, he stayed with his face close to Naruto’s feeling the warmth of his breath as the blonde finished saying what he needed to say.  
‘I’ve been so excited being with you, I didn’t believe it was possible to be this happy, that I’ve been really really selfish. I never thought, like I should have done right from the start, about the people whose lives we’re taking. But you have. You’ve been buried in this Sasuke’s study, reading his notes, looking through his diaries, examining all the mementos and things he carefully keeps. You’ve thought of him and his Naruto and how they’ve got swapped with us, how they’re completely powerless in a world where so many people will kill them. And even though you lied to me and pretended we couldn’t get home, you knew at some point you’d have to tell me the truth because we can’t leave them there.’

For a long moment the two men were silent, only their faces touching, then Sasuke managed to speak. ‘Why did you pretend to believe me?’  
‘Because you wanted me to,’ Naruto simply replied.

Again there was silence, but this time Naruto asked a question. ‘When did you work out how to get back?’

‘When I worked out how we got here.’ Sasuke moved slightly and cupped his hand under Naruto’s chin so they were looking into each other’s eyes. ‘You said that we can’t have the life at home that we can have here, it’s more than that.’ He bit down on his lip and summoned more courage to speak to Naruto now than he had ever needed in any battle. ‘When we first arrived I told you that this was nothing to do with me.’

‘I believed you.’ Naruto gave a sad smile. ‘And here was I feeling so proud that I could tell when you were lying.’

‘It wasn’t a lie. Transporting us here wasn’t a conscious thing, it was the centre of my soul powered by my love for you, pulling on all my dimensional knowledge and trying to stop me from doing the worse thing I’ve ever done.’ Tears streamed down Sasuke’s face but he made no effort to control them. ‘I can tell by the look in your eyes you understand.’

‘I’ve kinda seen over the years that you’ve been more with the kill in mad ways jutsus than heal the damage you’ve done ones. I’m guessing the pain in my stomach isn’t going to go away?’ Naruto’s smile became brighter, even teasing.

Sasuke wished the other ninja would attack him. ‘Because it was all an unconscious thing, I think, no, I’m certain, it took us out after the damage was done. But if we stay here it won’t get any worse, if you can live with the hurt, and I know you can as you’re the strongest person I know, we can be fine together here. More than fine.’ There was not hope, but desperation in Sasuke’s voice. 

‘And when we go back?’ Naruto spoke firmly, but his eyes were wide with sorrow which made Sasuke feel like his soul was being ripped apart.

‘Inhabiting these lives changes our reality and our body match that. Over time I suspect we’ll lose all our abilities and blend in with the people born here. But if we go back, I’ll be returning us to the moment of your…given more time I might be able to devise a way to make it right and…’

‘You just said that if we stay here longer we’ll get further away from our ninja abilities, so you’ll be less likely to get us home.’ Naruto took both Sasuke’s hands in his own. ‘We have to do this now. We can’t wait.’

‘The ones who are in our world will get our ninja abilities, they’ll learn how to protect themselves.’

‘It took us years to get as good as we are, how are they going to cope without knowing what’s going on and with people who have no problems using their abilities after them. You know better than me what Orochimaru would do if he managed to capture a version of you and me with no idea how to fight.’

Sasuke pulled away from Naruto and turned his back. ‘It’s probably already too late. We’ve left it too long. When I twist time back to the moment we swapped if they’re dead now all that will come back here is their corpses.’

‘I don’t think I’ll understand even if you had time to explain everything to me in minute detail. But I do know that I’ve been selfish.’ Naruto came behind Sasuke and wrapped his arms tightly around the raven. ‘And I’m continuing to be selfish because I want to just be with you and I want you to convince me that it’s okay after all for us to stay here, or there’s no way we can get back. I really really wanted…’ Naruto’s voice cracked and he took several deep breaths before he continued. ‘I just wanted you to make love to me properly. Just once. I hoped I’d done enough, saved enough people, risked my life enough times, that I could be rewarded with you. But life doesn’t work like that, yaknow. And right now I’m grateful for this time I got with you. I won’t forget, will I? In my last moments, I won’t forget?’

‘You won’t.’ Sasuke put his hands over Naruto’s.

‘And you won’t forget either, will you, teme? You’ll remember me.’

Sasuke made a sound between a laugh and a moan. ‘I promise you there is no way I could ever forget you, dobe.’

‘Do it then. I’m at peace, I’m ready. Even if we’ve been so selfish, even if all we can do is save them a couple of seconds of torture we have to do this, yaknow, it’s the right thing.’

Sasuke turned within Naruto’s embrace and kissed him with a passion he hadn’t known he was capable of before.  
‘How do you always taste of Miso? You had cornflakes for breakfast.’ Sasuke forced himself to smile even as the tears kept falling.

Naruto shrugged. ‘How come you always taste like cinnamon?’ He linked two of his fingers through Sasuke’s and then stepped away. ‘Please do it now, Sasuke. I want you to remember me being brave and I don’t know how much longer I can do this before I break.’

Staring into his lover’s eyes Sasuke weaved a string of complex signs together.

***

Sasuke opened his eyes. He hadn’t realised they were closed. His heart and soul were light, waiting with happy anticipation to see the man that lit up every day of his life…but no that was another life, one that didn’t belong to him. Instead he heard Naruto’s scream. It didn’t last long. Not even a second before it was cut off and there was no sound apart from birds cawing far ahead. The wind itself stopped, the oxygen vanished from the air and the world was painted in bloody reds.

Sasuke had no memory of landing the final blow, but he knew without doubt that his new jutsu had worked. He’d discovered a way not only to kill the body, but to rip the soul to threads too. There was nothing left of Uzumaki Naruto. Then he glanced down and saw the head protector with the familiar Konoha symbol that he’d left behind so many years ago. He stooped down and picked it up, he had no idea why it’d survived, but somehow it made sense that it would be the only thing left of the unpredictable ninja.

He glanced quickly around him. The energy from his jutsu was like a flare, there would be some sort of rescue party for Naruto, and Orochimaru would be unable to resist coming to see for himself what had happened. He could deal with any of them, but it was still preferable to be prepared. However, instead of leaping off into a less exposed position, he fell to his knees and started to weep.

At first he didn’t understand his emotion, the anger rose in him at such a foolish display of unwarranted emotion. But then he remembered the feel of Naruto’s naked body in his arms and it was the hate that raged through him like blood that left him confused.  
He was no longer the Sasuke who killed without remorse, but he wasn’t the one who had been affected by living another man’s life. Stuck between the two identities, he cursed the weakness that had made him return when he should have easily been able to convince Naruto to continue living in a world where they were safe and could be together. He was gripping the head protector so hard that the metal cut into his hand and droplets of his blood stained the band. He didn’t notice the pain, but when his eyes discovered the red on the last thing left of Naruto, he scrubbed madly at it, trying and failing to remove the blood with grains of dust.

‘Uzumaki Naruto!’ he screamed out. ‘I hate you for asking me to do this. Do you hear that? I hate you. Come back now, right now, and make me hate you even more by telling me how you’re going to take me home, and you’re never going to give up on me because I'm your best friend. Your first friend. Your first kiss. The only one that mattered.’ Sasuke’s scream faded into a whisper. ‘Please, Usuratonkachi, please come back. Please.’  
There was no answer, and he knew there never would be.


	17. Epilogue

The only sound that existed in Sasuke’s head was the sound of Naruto screaming. There was nothing else left for him in this world. No resurrection or reanimation jutsu could bring back the person who gave him life. He’d been too brilliant, too perfect and precise, in the death he gave his one true love. But now all his genius was useless to help him. The grief of his soul was eternal, there would be no end to his pain. He thought he’d known the depths of sorrow when Itachi killed their parents. He hadn’t.

It wasn’t much, it was hardly anything, but the single minuscule thing he held onto, was the hope that as pointless and needless as Naruto’s death was, at least his sacrifice had some meaning, the tiny chance that the versions of themselves that they temporarily replaced got to return safely home. 

As he weaved the signs, he felt like he was part of the Aburame clan with insects clawing through the marrow of his bones. When he arrived at that house in that world where Naruto and him finally found each other, and could have had a peaceful future together, the sensation worsened. Simultaneously it was as if his flesh was being ripped off his body by billions of tiny cuts and that sand was being pushed down his throat suffocating and squashing his eternal organs into dust. He knew this pain meant death. And he knew death wouldn’t be the end of his torment, but there was no reason to fight against it. It made no difference whether he was in the realm of the living or dead. It was all the same now.

He still heard Naruto’s screaming. It was right that would be the last sound for him in this life. But something inside Sasuke snapped into alertness. This wasn’t a death scream, this was a voice alive with panic and fear. With pure instinct Sasuke shook off the agony tearing through his body as if it was no more than an accidental graze. He rushed towards the bedroom where the shriek was coming from. He kicked the door open and was immediately by the bed with Naruto in his arms.

The blonde leant his weight fully against the raven, his head pushed against Sasuke’s shoulder as he shook with violent weeping.

‘You’re safe, Naruto, you’re not alone.’ Sasuke stroked a hand through messy locks. ‘I’m here, your lover, wake up and we’ll face a bright beautiful day together.’

Naruto looked up at him with wide eyes filled with complete trust and love. ‘I’m sorry, Sas, I’m so sorry. It’s so long since I had a nightmare and nothing ever like this. It felt so real.’ He buried his face against Sasuke’s chest. ‘I…I never get scared when I’m with you. But in this dream I was so scared. There was Gaara…but he wouldn’t listen to me. I couldn’t make him stop.’ He gave a small forced chuckle that held no happiness. ‘Maybe it was my subconscious guilt tripping me that after all these years I’ve still not learned Japanese properly.’ Naruto shook his head and tried to stand up, but his body was weak and Sasuke caught him and supported him.

‘God, I’m so sorry, Sas. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You’ve been so busy all day preparing for a party you don’t even want to have, and not only am I not helping, I’m worrying you by acting like a total baby because of a stupid dream.’ Naruto took a deep breath and managed to stand on his own, but he kept his hands on Sasuke’s chest. ‘Wow, what is this outfit? When did you get this? And your eyes? Wow. Just wow. It makes you look so different, like totally different. You’ve always refused to wear contacts for any of my mad cosplay ideas before. And you’re surprising me like this just for a little get together of our uni friends. What have I done to deserve all this, or is it something you want me to pay you back for later?’ Naruto gave another chuckle, this time it sounded genuine, but it only lasted for the briefest moment and then Naruto’s fists were gripping Sasuke’s clothes and he was staring at him with such intense sorrow, Sasuke could barely breathe. ‘You do know, don’t you, how much I need you and how completely I love you? You understand that without you I am nothing. I couldn’t get through one day if you…’

‘I understand.’ Sasuke leaned in and kissed Naruto. The kiss was both sad and desperate.  
He lifted the blonde up and Naruto wrapped his legs around Sasuke’s waist. Sasuke backed out of the room holding as tightly onto Naruto as Naruto was holding onto him. A list was already forming in his mind of all the things he would need to do, and there was nothing more urgent than getting this man away before Naruto’s fully awake mind focused properly on the bed. On the neat side where Sasuke normally slept, there was now only grains of sand dripping dark red blood onto the orange sheets.

Later he would mourn for the Sasuke he’d never met, but knew so well through photos, boxes of memories and those doodles playfully choosing which name he would take after he married the man he loved so much. In a way he would grieve and repent causing this death as much as he would for the loss of his own personal drop of sunshine, the wildly unpredictable but always loving ninja, who would chase across worlds to be with him.

But right now he concentrated solely on the person embracing him. He had a responsibility, a mission he would never complete.  
This Naruto was lighter than his, obviously not as strong nor as fast. The voice was loud, but the accent fell differently when he pronounced certain words. The hair was yellow, but didn’t shine so brightly. The eyes creased slightly differently when he smiled, they were expressive though, and if you took the time to look, you could see they carried the lonely terrors of childhood. And his lips possessed that sense that he wanted to smile and make others smile, a belief that the happiness of the moment could cure the pain of the past. Sasuke was certain that this Naruto was as brave, reckless and as much of a stupid-genius as his was, but their lives, experiences and knowledge were insurmountably different. 

His heart felt hollow with the ache that he could not love this man as this man deserved to be loved. He was only capable of loving one person like that, and darkness had twisted his emotions so horrificially that he had killed that person. He couldn’t change that, but he vowed he would dedicate all his energy to making this Naruto happy, it was the only repentance he could offer to the two people he had murdered.

The blonde pushed his tongue deeper and hungrily into Sasuke’s mouth. Sasuke gave the smallest and saddest of smiles. With all the other differences, one thing was the same: the taste of Miso. And for one blissful moment Sasuke crossed time and dimensions and was young again, his soul free and unstained by unforgivable acts. He was sitting in a classroom, thinking he was separated from the immaturity surrounding him by the singular revenge that powered his every action, when the most clumsy and useless of kids hurled himself at him and their lips touched. And for one blissful moment his heart beat faster and he experienced the full potential of a life that overflowed with fulfilled desire and true love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, I am endlessly grateful to you for patiently taking this journey with me through my first attempt at writing fanfiction.
> 
> When I've been sad, or life has generally felt grey and drab, I've discovered such joy online finding that there were a whole world of people who have similar wild imaginings to me. And even though I was nervous, and still feel shy even with all the anonymity the internet provides, sharing my own creation with you has taken it to another level.
> 
> I hope wherever and whenever you're reading this life, love and your own creativity are providing you with the happiness levels of Naruto spending a long summer's day and warm balmy night with his best friend, Sasuke.


End file.
